New person seeks general advice

[Thantrax]

Hello everyone!  

I'm a new person here on Second Life and I'm trying to get myself oriented.  I first became interested in signing up here when I stumbled upon some videos on Youtube of Second Life avatars and saw how far the graphics have come.  This is a far cry from when the game first came out! 

When one gets involved in something like Second Life, there are almost always things that the new guy (or newbie, n00b, or whatever you call us fresh people) should know.  Anyone have some general advice they would like to give?  My reading up on Second Life has produced some references to other Viewer clients for Second Life, for example, should I be looking into those instead of the main one?   

I'm an avid table top role player, playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, Mutants and Masterminds, and the World of Darkness game lines.  I also used to be a player on various online role play games like MUCKs and MUSHes.  One of my main interests in Second Life is the idea of trying to make an avatar for some of my tabletop characters so I can take great pictures of them as I imagined them, so I can show them off to all my friends.  Can anyone recommend a great place to get started on customizing their avatar?

[Storm Clarence]

Hi Thantrax and welcome to SL and the forum.  Up a few spaces on the forum main screen is the section YOUR AVATAR.  Click on it and read the OP's.  There are many dedicated to exactly what you are asking.  Good luck, and don't forget to post a pic of your new avatar in the Vanity Thread.  

[Ariel Vuissent]

In order to customize an avatar the way you want and have it look good, you'll want high quality gear. Which means you'll probably have to put some RL money into SL in order to afford the gear you want. That, or learn to build, practice, practice, practice, and make it all yourself, which is time consuming. (Worthwhile if you have the time and think you have the patience and skill to learn it.) You can certainly find plenty of gear that's free, but often - though not always - you get what you pay for.

Viewer-wise, you can use whatever you want. The grid is split right between the official viewer and Phoenix/Firestorm (same team making both Phoenix and Firestorm, but Phoenix is older and based off the old code, whereas Firestorm is based off the new code). Firestorm works better for me. The Phoenix/Firestorm team tends to go behind LL cleaning up all their messes and bugs in their viewer, so it tends to run better for many people. If you don't have a problem with the official one, feel free to keeping using it. There are also many people using other TPV's (Third Party Viewers), so you can also feel free to experiment with those.

There's a great deal of roleplay in Second Life as well that may be worth exploring, including medieval fantasy (some of which take their basis from Dungeons and Dragons, while still having their own storylines). You can put together a character and actually interact with other characters in a fun roleplay environment. As you seem to be literate and able to express yourself, it strikes me as something you may be good at. (The good rp enviroments will welcome you if you are able and willing to type decently, narrate your actions, and not act and type like a 13-year-old girl texting on her iPhone.)

As for places to start customizing, it depends what you're looking for. You can check the marketplace; there's TONS available there, but it can be difficult to sift through and not all creators are there, so you might miss some pretty awesome stuff if you only shop there.

My general advice is to explore, ask for help when you need it, and not to take SL too seriously. It's more than a game to many, but at it's core, it's still a virtual world, not a real one. Avoid the drama people will try to suck you into, and enjoy yourself.

[Thantrax]

@Storm : Thanks for the suggestion.  Usually when I visit a forum for topics like this, the help threads are stickied.  I didn't see any stickied topics in that sub-forum, is there an easy way to find the forum threads that could help me?  I could browse through the 24 pages of threads I suppose, but I'd like to save myself that work if possible.

 

@Ariel : I suspect you are right about the getting what you pay for.  I am certainly going to be willing to invest in some Linden Dollars in order to get the right outfit pieces, but I think I'll be holding off on making a slew of purchases until I get myself oriented.  Plus, knowing me, I'll still want to make parts of the outfits myself in order to match the image I have in my own mind.  

As to this Firestorm viewer, when I was reading up on the Wikipedia page on Second Life, they mentioned there that the Emerald viewer, a previous third party viewer, featured some malware code.  Is the Firestorm viewer free of such controversy?  Also, is there any other third party viewers you'd care to recommend for consideration?

[PeterCanessa Oh]

General advice:

1. A lot of SL residents will get annoyed if you call it a game
2. LL don't provide any useful instructions or make anything easy to find
3. Don't expect anything to work properly, consistently or the way you expect 'games' to work
4. Everything (98%) in SL is resident-created so has to be downloaded, cached and rendered whereas 'games' usually have most content pre-installed.
5. Quality of internet connection is vital, so use wired, not wireless if you can.
6. Forget all your preconceptions, learn to walk, teleport and chat then just explore SL for a week or more before you try to do anything
7. Some of the first places you should visit are NCI (Kuula sim), The Shelter and/or Caledon Oxbridge.  These are helper organisations that will help you get settled in.

[Marigold Devin]

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Thantrax wrote:

Hello everyone!  

I'm a new person here on Second Life and I'm trying to get myself oriented.  I first became interested in signing up here when I stumbled upon some videos on Youtube of Second Life avatars and saw how far the graphics have come.  This is a far cry from when the game first came out! 

When one gets involved in something like Second Life, there are almost always things that the new guy (or newbie, n00b, or whatever you call us fresh people) should know.  Anyone have some general advice they would like to give?  My reading up on Second Life has produced some references to other Viewer clients for Second Life, for example, should I be looking into those instead of the main one?   

I'm an avid table top role player, playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, Mutants and Masterminds, and the World of Darkness game lines.  I also used to be a player on various online role play games like MUCKs and MUSHes.  One of my main interests in Second Life is the idea of trying to make an avatar for some of my tabletop characters so I can take great pictures of them as I imagined them, so I can show them off to all my friends.  Can anyone recommend a great place to get started on customizing their avatar?

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Welcome to Second Life and Second Life Forums, Thantrax.

It is really admirable that you have boned up on Second Life prior to entering the world.  Now is the time for you to plunge in feet first.

All of us learn at a different rate, and Second Life means very different things to different people.  You've already expressed a desire to create an avatar based on favourite characters.  You might find that some of these have already been created if you go and look at the Second Life Marketplace (where, by the way, a lot of items are absolutely free) https://marketplace.secondlife.com/?lang=en-US

You are right. The graphics have come a long way.  Second Life is a constantly evolving world.  The latest exciting feature is we are now able to import mesh creations (this depends greatly on the viewer a person uses too).  We have reflections in our oceans, which we didn't always have, and Phoenix viewer (and Firestorm) have a few extra features to the official Second Life viewer. 

Regarding your enquiry about third party viewers, there is a list, with more information, of approved third party viewers. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Downloads These should all be as safe to use as the Second Life official viewer.  I have used Phoenix for more than a year and have been extremely happy with it's performance and compatibility with my own computer system, but it is very much like finding the right pair of shoes or trousers; you sometimes need to try on several before you find the right one for the individual. 

I believe you are going to enjoy your Second Life immensely. 

And of course, any further enquiries you have, please ask right here. Someone will always be available to advise you.





[Venus Petrov]

Welcome to SL and the forum!  You express a wonderful, curious approach to SL and I feel confident that you will do well.  There are so very many 'looks' that one can design for one's avatar.  While most select a human form, you can also explore other forms, too.   Be aware that should you decide to become an auto avatar, there are some clubs that will not admit you to drive about the dance floor. 

I suggest that you spend some time exploring and meeting people.  If you see someone wearing something you like, ask them where they got it.  They may even have a landmark to the shop to give you.

As Mari suggests, Marketplace is another good source and many like to browse there, too.  Take your time and enjoy.

[Mayalily]

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Thantrax wrote:

Hello everyone!  

I'm a new person here on Second Life and I'm trying to get myself oriented.  I first became interested in signing up here when I stumbled upon some videos on Youtube of Second Life avatars and saw how far the graphics have come.  This is a far cry from when the game first came out! 

When one gets involved in something like Second Life, there are almost always things that the new guy (or newbie, n00b, or whatever you call us fresh people) should know.  Anyone have some general advice they would like to give?  My reading up on Second Life has produced some references to other Viewer clients for Second Life, for example, should I be looking into those instead of the main one?   

I'm an avid table top role player, playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, Mutants and Masterminds, and the World of Darkness game lines.  I also used to be a player on various online role play games like MUCKs and MUSHes.  One of my main interests in Second Life is the idea of trying to make an avatar for some of my tabletop characters so I can take great pictures of them as I imagined them, so I can show them off to all my friends.  Can anyone recommend a great place to get started on customizing their avatar?

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Hi, Welcome!

Yes, the Avatar section of the forum is great like Storm suggested.  All the people here have other good suggestions.  The only two I can think of is the events section has some great ideas, as does the role play section of the forum.  With V3, the LL version, on the log in screen it tells you what is currently active in SL, and that is a feature I love.  Even if you chose another viewer, download V3 as that way you can just open V3 to see what's currently happening in your time zone, you don't even need to log into the viewer.  V3 is the current LL viewer.  I use it and have no problems with LL viewers.  Everyone has their own preferences though.  The only problem I have with the newest LL Viewer 3 is the IM's are at the top right of the screen which is too far away for me to read with my large LCD screen, so I will probably be switching to Firestorm viewer, but I will keep my V3 there as I love to just open the page and see what's happening in SL when I want to log on.

I agree with the Marketplace.  It's a great place to view a lot of things in a shorter time span.  If you like the store, you can usually also go look inworld.  If you are going to rent or get a skybox, I prefer to see the furniture rezzed personally.  So for furniture, I tend to shop inworld, though have lucked out on a few furniture items on Marketplace that worked just great.  Sculpties tend to be very low prim and some are really nice for such low prims. 

One thing that has helped me a lot is to right click and chose rename the items in my inventory, such as all my jewelry items are renamed jewelry and then a short explanation of what the jewelry is, etc, and that way I can find my things much easier.

Some clubs want no scripts now, so if you join any of those, be sure to resize your items and then kill the scripts.  You can make a copy before you kill the scripts, and call that item back-up for _____________ fill in the blank. 

Again, welcome!

 

[UncommonTruth]

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Thantrax wrote:  Usually when I visit a forum for topics like this, the help threads are stickied.  I didn't see any stickied topics in that sub-forum, is there an easy way to find the forum threads that could help me?

 

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In the upper right of the screen there is a search bar..see it?...invaluable if you ask me. I was able to skip through a lot of apparently common noob mistakes by finding the forums and filtering through the threads. So, you're off to a good start :matte-motes-smile:

Side note, if you need any help, feel free to get ahold of me inworld. I might not have the answers, but maybe I can point you in the right direction. Welcome to Second Life :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2:

 

Edited for spelling as usual ^^

[Ariel Vuissent]

Firestorm is fine. Emerald wrote in a bit of code they shouldn't have, and was banned. If you're terribly concerned you or someone you know who is tech savvy can review the code - it's open source, and everyone has access. (That's how Emerald got in trouble in the first place; apparently they either didn't think anything of it, or didn't think anyone would notice.) In any case, I'm sure there are some tech savvy people who review the Firestorm code whenever it's updated and would report any malware or spyware, especially after the Emerald Viewer scandal.

[Thantrax]

Well, thank you everyone for the warm welcome!  I'm glad to see I've made a positive impression here.  I'm looking forward to my first chance to hit the marketplace and get some free clothes to change out of this newbie wear my avatar has got and looking around a bit.