I like pictures, but they take a lot of time to make so I wanted to write some posts about my (and other people’s) experiences in Second Life without some definite purpose and perhaps post some shoddy pictures while I am writing. It will be a scrapbook that might make for some amusing reads, for when you are with a bunch of friends crashing at some place and the dvd/video player just broke down.
What follows are the experiences of Liz(a name that covers more than one person) who entered this world a few days ago and made some notes regarding her experiences. I rewrote the whole to make it a bit more coherent.
Before I entered Second Life I had to pick an avatar(a representation of yourself in Second Life: see above) and then I appeared at an island that was ran by Governor Linden. The bot that has this name gave me some basic instructions and then it was off to explore the island or Second Life. Besides me there were two other people at the beach I started. One was called something like Gaaaaaaaaa and the other called G5processor or something.
My avatar looked like this grungy tattooed female with large hands, a heart shaped face and big glasses, and without a proper animation I looked and moved like a silly cartoon. I was struggling with my avatar when Gaaaaaaaaa came up and started to talk to me in what seemed to be Italian. Since I learned my Italian from the Mario brothers and the local Pizza dinner I wasn’t able to make much sense of what he was saying and I told him so in English. He seemed to understand this because he said ‘Si’ and then sauntered off. A few seconds later he send me a friendship offer, which I declined. Perhaps I am nasty for doing so, but I think that it is totally pointless to be friends with someone you can’t understand and learning Italian wasn’t on the list of things to do. Or even getting close to be put onto the list.
Next, I was chatted to by a girl, who was called something like Judy25, and she asked if I could help her out as she got no frigging clue how to get around or where to go. Since nobody gave us directions I figured I needed to get her some help, preferably provided by the kind of people who like to help. Does it sound like I wanted to get rid of her? It probably does.
It was a toss up between White Tiger Island or Caledon. White Tiger won. Funny enough, White Tiger Island renamed and now called New Resident Island(NRI). Had they not popped up in the search anyway then I would have tried Caledon or NCI(New Citizens Inc.)
NRI did have two mentors standing by and one of them, called EO, took care of Judy25. EO looked dashingly better than us noobs, as she was wearing some very nice mesh winterclothes – a matching set – and had a very nice looking avatar. She told us that our avatars were made of mesh and thus we couldn’t change their looks. Many thanks to Linden for providing everyone with avatars that you can’t change. Brilliant! (Actually, you can choose classic avatars when you start, but who does that? Classic sounds like old and boring. Besides, they offer you the mesh avatars by default so I didn’t even know there were other options.)
So the first thing to do is getting rid of the mesh avatar and change to a classic avatar. Mesh avatars can look great, but at the current there is not yet a way to make it as personal as the basic avatar, so most people still prefer those. In the future it will probably change as even the mesh statues now look better then the classic avatars and smart people hop on the mesh bandwagon and are creating cool mesh avatars. Of course, these cost money so in the near future you probably get a kind of gap between the poor non-mesh classic avatar users and the rich mesh avatar users. A visible gap in riches.
I skipped the shops at NRI and got a good skin and clothes with the help of the friends of Red Jenney(actually Dreary arranged it: Dreary is a kind of guiding spirit) A nice way to get things is to go to the Second Life marketplace website and just search for things like promo, gift or freebie. You can also try an filter items based on the price, but this might still result in a ton of hits, because almost all demos will show up. Well, if you want to be cheap, you have to work for it I guess. Oh.. another way to get good stuff is to go to one of the bigger shops like Gizza or Vero Modero. They usually have a collection of free gifts. Most not half bad.
I also visited one of the few decent inworld freebie shops, called the Free Dove because the big freebie places are hangouts for almost any scumbag that wants to take advantage of new people, such as the pathetic bloodline vampires, trolls and sex seekers. I dislike the bloodline vampires the most. Not because they prey on newbies, – it does not surprise me at all that they do – but because their role-play is half-assed. They are mighty vampires preying on the puny humans but they never need to fear daylight cause in SL everyone can control their own night and day cycle and so they live in their own private perpetual darkness.. And of course, mere humans have no power against them in SL, so they can’t be staked, chased away with crosses, shot to pieces or what ever. In other words they have all the advantages of vampires but do not suffer from their weaknesses. It is half-assed role-play. At least, if you want to mess with other people(who by the way are NOT into your role-play), make it a challenge.
I was about a minute in the Free Dove when I was im-ed by a dude called Hadrian. Hadrian told me he was misdirected by mistake to this place and he was curious and wanted to help me out because I was a noob. Such a nice gesture! I told him to hold on while I im-ed Dreary. Dreary said I should im the nearest other girl in the place to see if Hadrian had been chatting to her as well. It was jackpot on the first try.. Right! A profile check told me that Hadrian was six years in SL. While that means not much, it at least told me he wasn’t some kind of innocent guy who happened to end up in the Free Dove by mistake. By sheer coincidence the owner was also in the shop so I told her about Hadrian. I understand from Dreary that the owner dislikes people like that, and it was true: she banned him forthwith. By now she must be very experienced with the kind. Just sad really that they keep on trying. Double sad because SL is not short on places to meet people. Perhaps they have such a bad reputation that they need to pray on the newcomers? Who knows.
So what to do next?
Well.. Dreary send me off to a place called Corvus to get her some tats and see if there was anything I liked. Corvus is a funny place as it has these clothes that you either love or hate. The style is a deranged mix of goth and punk, but not so weird that is isn’t main stream. The clothes might be revealing, but I don’t find them explicit sexy. It is more like pepper and salt, or vinegar and sugar. Black and white. But weird.
Here are some screenshots of me and of some of their products:
The maker of the corvus stuff seems to like weird and provocative texts. Like the tat I had to get for Dreary which says: Destroy that which destroys you. or: I hate everyone(Dreary says they should add equally: I hate everyone equally. Dreary likes to come up with strange sentences. I try to get some posted below.)
Here is a picture of Dreary. The shirt is van Corvus as well.
Oh… I was going to tell something about that lesbian palace.. Well that is for the next post.. sorry. Yeah, cheap cliffhanger.
