Let’s
put our thoughts on the table for a second, when we join Second Life, we
normally have some sort of purpose in which we’re trying to obtain in the
virtual world. Each purpose and goal is individualized for each user. I may use
Second Life for a completely different reason than another person would use the
platform. Let’s be honest, the American Dream is hard to come by nowadays but
in Second Life it’s possible. We as users can live a reality that is harder to
obtain in our own lives in the real world. This post I’ll be talking about my
experience from the very beginning and what I’ve been trying to obtain as a
user in Second Life for about 9 years. As crazy as it may seem my purpose in
Second Life at the very beginning though it may seem weird was to study and be
with my teacher and classmates learning about various subjects using Second
Life as a key component platform for showing us what the teacher wanted to
teach. With that being said let’s jump right in!
Second
Life in The School Setting & Teen Grid:
A photo taken right after I got back on after Teen Grid closed down.
Yes,
I’m one of the individuals in which Second Life was used in my high school to
teach us certain topics. My teachers used it as a tool in the classroom if it
weren’t for them and Second Life being downloaded on the school laptops I
would’ve never known or experienced what Second Life had to offer. I’m one of
those young kids who started Second Life on the Teen Grid when it was still
around. There was a point in time were kids 13-18 could sign up for a more
kid-friendly version of Second Life where everyone was technically a minor. This
was around my Freshman year of high school and having Second Life in the
schools lasted until about the end of my Sophomore year. This is around the
time when we got the news that the grids were merging otherwise known as Teen
Grid no longer being alive and Linden Labs just making Second Life what it is
known as which is Second Life. This is around the time when the sign-up age was
for 17 and older, kids could no longer play Second Life but with good reason.
Later on, down the line when I had my account unfrozen (that’s what they did
they froze all of the teen grid accounts until they hit the proper age to come
back into Second Life.) it made perfect sense with all of the sex sims and
skill gaming regions. But with that, as I said above, I’ve been a member
overall for 9 years.
1920’s Berlin Sim Role Playing With a Friend
Purpose
of Second Life to me Until Age 19:
Second
Life’s purpose for me has changed throughout the years. When I was younger my
purpose for using Second Life was to not be alone to chat with people and
always have someone there for me even though they were far away. I used Second
Life to cope with my anxiety of being alone which is odd because I’m very
independent and don’t mind being alone. However, being as outgoing as I am, I
wanted that human connection almost all the time because to be fair I always
felt alone in the real world. I used Second Life to meet new people and make
new friends along the way who have been close friends to me for years and years
some for decades. Most people go online to escape reality and honestly in a
sense I’ve done the same. During this time, I was in college school was
stressful, making friends was hard, depression and anxiety were hitting me like
a hurricane. During this time, I didn’t have a strong head on my shoulders. I
was looking for something that I couldn’t obtain in my reality true friendship
and with some people, I’ve found it. To be fair, they probably know me better
than most people in my reality but that tends to happen when you have internet
friends. To be honest, I also used Second Life at the time to release my inner
demon in a sense and try things I’d never do in the real world. I experimented
with my sexuality and fetishes and what I liked and didn’t like. This led to a
relationship that I wasn’t proud to be in and was somewhat abusive that led
into my reality but just so everyone knows that relationship is long gone. I
honestly, didn’t know what I wanted in my Second Life and during this time my
main usage for Second Life was to be a fashionista, meeting and making friends,
and experimenting with sexuality.
Showing off my Avatar fashionista status with this photo. I put together her outfit with a French flare in mind.
My
Purpose in Second Life Now:
Everyone
makes mistakes as we’re all human and it’s the normal human response in
society. I’ve learned from these mistakes; I have a very strong and hard head
on my shoulders and because of this my purpose of Second Life has changed from
the past till now. I have a few different purposes for using the platform now
and most of them are to help my creative juices flow. I’ve always been a
passionate writer I’ve loved writing since I could pick up a pencil and write.
I’ve been looking for content writing positions in the real world, but do you
know how hard that is? I also have a passion for virtual worlds as they have
been a part of my life for many years. That is when I decided to write a blog.
I consistently had writer’s block, and this is because I lost my skill because
I didn’t keep up with it. So, I started Charming Ellie I use my blog as a hobby
I don’t want to make money off of it I use it to help get my content out into
the world and to write about something I’m passionate about and care about. My
blog helps me to write almost every day and keep up with new trends in the
virtual world industry especially since a lot of virtual worlds are beginning
to disappear with time. My purpose in Second Life is to explore, create, and
help deliver content to Second Life users all around the globe on travel,
advice, and just living you’re Second Life to the fullest.
The
other reason I use Second Life now is to keep up with the friends I’ve made in
the past who are still friends with me today. They come on occasionally, and I
make sure I log on now and then just to spend time with those important people.
My main purpose for being in second life now is to hone my skills in interior design
and fashion. These are things that cost a lot of money in reality so I just
find it best to create and do these things in a virtual world platform on
Second Life where it’s a lot cheaper and there are so many ways to implement
avatar and land/home creation. I use Second Life now more as a creative outlook
a way to push my creativity and get the juices flowing consistently. To be
fair, I still use Second Life in a way to escape reality but not as much as
I’ve used to. I keep to myself, for the most part, I do everything alone if I
can but now and then I’ll run into someone to chat with for a few hours or
more.
My
Dream:
Another Dream I didn’t mention is having a beautiful babe girl when I’m not ready for one in reality. But that’s something completely different.
One of
the biggest dreams I’ve had and yes, I’m a dreamer is to work for Linden Labs.
They don’t truly realize how much Second Life does indeed mean to me and the
people inside of it. I’ve always wanted to make a difference quite a few times
I almost opened shop in Second Life to give advice and help with different
situations as I do have a life coach certification. There is a huge need for
something like that but when I tried people didn’t use it. I don’t want to be
famous or popular for writing blog posts or anything along those lines. But
I’ve always wanted to do content writing or something and become join the
Lindens and creators over at Linden Labs. I’ve always wanted to make a
difference in the world and even though Linden Labs is a corporation they have
done that for so many people. Maybe one day I’ll be able to but for now, it’s
just hopes and dreams that will take me far in my adventures in this reality of
life. We never know what the future has to offer and our dreams in life take us
further than we expect them to.
With all of this being my experience, I want to hear from all my readers in the comment section. What purpose does Second Life have in your life? What do you use the platform for and why? How did you start? And how is Second Life important to you? I’d love to hear from all of you as this is something that interests me about all of the users I run into and honestly it’s how I always strike up a conversation because everyone is different and everyone comes into this virtual world for different reasons. I hope to see all of you in my next post.
I feel like my blog has
been out long enough now to go into some more advanced How-To’s. I wanted to do
one specifically on room creation in IMVU since interior design is my favorite
thing to do in any virtual world platform. So, as you may have guessed I drop
some of my real-life money into virtual worlds to make that happen you can’t
buy nice and interactive furniture without virtual currency. It’s not a super
expensive hobby but it is an addiction and can get expensive if you start
becoming like me and always shopping for the newest and greatest furniture you
can find. Ahead of time, this is a beginner post to creating rooms in IMVU so
if you’re new to IMVU this is for you. If you’re just getting into room creation
in IMVU but are a user that has been around for a while this post is also for
you. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below but I did try
to make this post as simplistic and as direction oriented as I possibly could.
I hope this is helpful for all of you out there trying to get into room
creation.
Beginning view on the IMVU client
From the front of your viewer press the “My Room Icon”
Since I don’t have the default room anymore you will get a page like the one below.
My Room View
At the bottom of your screen, there are different icons the ones we’re going to be looking at specifically are the chair and house icon. The chair icon is the furniture that you currently own and your house icon are the different rooms you own.
These are the icons you will see the house is the rooms you have and the chair is the furniture you own
This is what you will see when you click either button but this is what I have when I hit my furniture button. On the side you can search furniture by category by the buttons. There is a chair for seating, a table button, misc, and poses. You can also sort it all by your most recent pieces which is nice if you buy something new from the IMVU shop and are trying to find it real quickly for placing.
On the side are your categories for rooms and furniture which will look like the photo below.
Categories when I press the button that looks like a house for the “My Rooms.”
In the upper left-hand corner, you will see an icon with a hammer and a music note press the hammer.
Press the Hammer! this brings up the bottom image.
Furniture Tools you can also bring this up by pressing (Ctrl + f)
From there you’ll get a whole other set of icons these are going to be your room editing icons. Each one performs a different function. These functions are; explore (Ctrl + E) , move (Ctrl +M) , rotate (Ctrl + r) , scale (Ctrl + s) , copy (Ctrl + P) , reset (Ctrl + t) , lock (Ctrl + l) , delete (Ctrl + d) , undo (Ctrl + u) , redo (Ctrl + m) , and a help button. The keyboard shortcuts are as you can see in parenthesis just in case you want to learn them it makes editing and creating rooms so much easier with the keyboard shortcuts. You can also pull up the furniture tools by pressing (Ctrl + f).
Empty room to start out with I’m going for a chic city style for this example.
Now that we know what all the icons are, how they work, and what to do let’s make a new room. Go ahead and click a room from you’re “My rooms” list. I picked “To Trust me Danny” by the creator “Typical” since it’s my only empty room. You’ll start with an empty room like the one above.
Then you will click the chair icon I told you about to go to your furniture tab where all your furniture is. To add a piece into your room just click one of the furniture icons and it will show up in your room.
This is how the icons will look whether you choose a room or a furniture item.
Since this is just the basics were just positioning the furniture with the readily available pose balls. Depending on the room you might only get specific places to place furniture you can click the move icon or use the keyboard shortcut and move that furniture piece to where you want it within reason. You’re limited at this point until I teach you a little trick in the next post for IMVU room creation number 2.
This icon will come up with whatever you chose from the furniture tools. From here you can click and drag to move or click and rotate your mouse when on the rotate icon to rotate the piece of furniture.
From this point, you can use any of the functions in your room tools to make your room yours! It takes a little practice, but I was able to learn how to create rooms after I knew you could do it yourself within an hour at most. It’s a pretty simple process with the IMVU platform client.
This is my end result example of how I decorated the space.
Hopefully, this helped you get started on your room creation as I noted from before this is for beginners and this is just the main basics, I’ll post more advanced How-To’s once you get this down. There are many tricks and things you can do from this point, but this was just to give you an idea on how everything worked and how to get started especially if your new and only learned how to do avatar creation or have only been in the chatroom’s or the chat now area of IMVU. Some people don’t even know that you can create unique rooms from an empty room and furniture you can buy through IMVU’s shop. Which to give you an idea looks like the photo to your right you know just in case you’re like me and enjoy shopping and wasting your money on virtual items as I do. It’s almost like in-app purchases if you’re more of a mobile user. To be fair buying things virtually is cheaper than reality and gives you the same instant gratification, however, sometimes it can get out of hand. I’ll be creating a post soon on virtual world currency and my experiences relating around that so stay tuned. Any questions about this post please feel free to type them below in the comments and I’ll respond within 48 hours of you posting the comment.
To bring heartfelt
honest opinions and content to everyone I tend to never post what I won’t go
out and do for myself. This time around the goal was to find out if Second Life
is a virtual world that is user-friendly and accessible and easy to understand
for all users who decide to choose this platform to start their virtual world
journey. I decided to hit the reset button and create a whole new account and
start over to bring all of you a detailed post on my experiences being a noob
in Second Life today.
Disclaimer, this post
is filled with ideas and opinions that are mine from my experiences if you have
constructive criticism please feel free to comment or message me but there
shouldn’t be any hate. This is what I went through as an individual in this
virtual world experience and I’m bringing back what I’ve experienced with me to
show and help you as the reader who is interested in joining a virtual world or
just wanted to know more about them. Another thing to add is this post will be
a lot longer than a lot of the others as I must fit in a large amount of
content into a smallish type post (I tried this won’t be a small post). If
there is a section, you want to know more about than another I went ahead and
titled each area for all of you if there is a section you might not want to
read.
Let’s get started!
Signing up:
As for most virtual
worlds, you start with the whole signing up. Whether or not it is a viewer or
platform-based or a browser-based virtual world the sign up is always in
your internet browser. One thing I found super cool is when signing up
for a Second Life account now it gives you an option to be male, female, or
gender variant/non-binary (how they labeled other). Because my first avatar is
named Ellie, I went with the username EllieThePracticalWitch cute huh? Anyway,
it also gives you the option right then and there if you want to be basic or
premium which is nice. I honestly didn’t know premium was available until a
friend told me about it which is when I began paying for it about two years
ago. I’ll be posting a post about that in the future. It only gives you the
option to download the Second Life default viewer with no third-party software.
Even though I use a third-party open sim viewer I downloaded the default viewer
just to see differences and specifics since I’ll also be doing a post on
firestorm versus the default Second Life viewer so stay tuned for that. Then
you realize technology is a little creepier than you expect because it came up
knowing that I was brand new without me putting my information in such as my
username and password. How fun! But it does tell you what you’re about to
experience with pictures of what each place looks like.
To the right, it says:
“Your first step is learning island. Find the exit portal!”
To the left, it says:
“Then explore the social island and meet other new residents!”
Well, let’s see what
happens since we’re “new” currently.
It seems like when you
pop in as I stood at the landing point for a little bit people get randomly put
into a default avatar. You can’t choose which default avatar you want to be to
start anymore. In the past you could they also had furry options which were
nice if you’re into the furry community. But now most of their avatars are
either human, angels & demons, vampires, or just fantasy-themed I’m
assuming from the medieval era. At the beginning you also receive this message:
Freebie store at the end of the corner before it sends you on your way into the world of Second Life after the tutorial.
════[ YOUR APPEARANCE ]═════════════════
Don’t worry about how
you look right now. Enjoy this tutorial,
and at the end of it, you will be led to the Freebie Megastore where you can
customize your appearance.
═════════════════════════════════
Meli Imako Freebie items for male avatars in Second Life these are mesh items and super nice quality.
This is a game-changer because in the past I had no one I had to make my own money or online currency and buy things myself to not look super noobish or find my freebie store. So, I give major props to Linden Labs for moving forward giving newer players everything they need so far to get started. They also give you signs to teach you how to interact with the environment around you which is super helpful if you have no idea what you’re doing. Another huge step up in the game is for male avatars their giving away nicely made mesh clothes with full permissions created by a popular full permissions creator in Second Life whose name is Meli Imako. That just blew my mind because I normally buy a lot of her stuff and then re texture it. I’m super blown away currently. To be fair it’s only 4 items in a small shop that says “freebie” down the street, but something is way better than nothing. For those wondering you can grab a landmark to the actual freebie store that you can go to after the tutorial process.
Free to play games that you will find on gambling sims otherwise known as skill gaming sims.
Something cool they also had was some of the gambling games
out to show newer players that they’re available, however, you have to be in a
state that allows online gambling but you can play these free play machines if
you wish to. Sorry Floridians I know for a fact that we can’t go into skill
gaming regions these are gambling sims. Online gambling is now illegal in the
state of Florida as well as a few other states as well.
I know I put this a little lower than when I explained this portion but this is to give you an idea of how they lead you through the tutorial. They have boards up that teach you how to do everything in Second Life which is nice. I feel you can learn at your own pace this way which is super nice some of it is confusing like this board but in other words its how to change your view point such as third person, first person, front view, etc. You don’t have to do this ever but it’s there if you want to.
Their welcome hubs are now London themed and it’s called
London City. I can only imagine the main reason for this is because Linden Labs
is in the United Kingdom which makes perfect sense. But the beginning tutorial
is very user-friendly it teaches you exactly how to do everything in an
environment you’re comfortable in with other players who are new so you don’t
feel anxiety stricken that you’re around “seasoned” players who might
not give you the time of day. It’s a more positive environment and everyone is
on the same new level.
When you first start with the sign-up process it seems
rather straight forward and simplistic. The viewer itself is somewhat
complicated but you learn how to use it with time. You can stay in the beginner
areas if you want or need you can also revisit back to it by taking the
landmark which will be a gigantic red pin and then click it to gain the
landmark. Then if you need more practice or don’t feel comfortable going out to
other places yet while you’re still learning you know you’ll be accepted in
London City.
Avatar Editing:
This is going to be a little tough you can edit pretty much
everything with an avatar every piece of the face, every aspect of the body,
and everything else such as clothes to make-up, etc. The avatar creation
process is extensive and there is so much you can do. The avatar body
appearance creator is slider based with different measurements it changes the
appearance of your overall body and face of your avatar. However, as far as
freebies nowadays most cost about 1l each sad fact but I found it extremely
hard to customize my avatar without adding a little bit of money onto the
virtual world to get some virtual world currency to get started. But luckily
the 1l freebies are relatively worth the buy they’re not the unwanted stuff
that you’d probably find years ago. So I’d put the minimum amount that Second
Life allows you to spend to get some currency to spend on creating your avatar
here is what you might need to spice it up if you don’t want to grab a mesh
body, etc yet.
A nice hair = 150-300 lindens
Clothes = 1 linden on up
Skin = can be expensive I’ll say 200 on up
Shoes = 1 linden on up
A nice AO = 250-3,000 lindens
This is an example of linden pricing on clothing for relatively nice items that don’t make you look too bad. Otherwise you won’t be able to find mesh products you would have to go with early 2000s prim products which users somewhat frown upon nowadays in Second Life.
You can find many things in many different price ranges but
for a relatively nice avatar while not being up to date with a new body and
mesh head I’d expect spending $5-$10 USD to get started. If you want things in
the future, by all means, get a job on Second Life or just add more on but
otherwise, you will be stuck with the default avatar and honestly, you don’t
want that after the one-month point. I’ll be honest I tried to put a relatively
nice avatar together with 0 lindens and it’s impossible. It was the biggest
challenge, I had to settle with prim/Flexi hair which is hair made from the
early 2000s when Second Life first released. Creating an avatar is not
beginner-friendly it took me a good hour starting over to just finish the shape
I wanted. I’m telling you I didn’t know how tough Second Life could be for a
beginner just starting with the platform. For me, it would be easier because
I’m an experienced user but I feel if someone in their 70s just needed
something to do and pass the time while being social they would have trouble
with creating an avatar unless they wanted to keep the default and just
explore. It almost makes me super happy that I create How-To posts related
around both IMVU and Second Life I feel without them people would be super lost
on what to do. This avatar creation system could be a lot more
beginner-friendly for the time being though I’ll be creating more posts now
that I know how difficult this could be for a newer player. I’m sorry that
Second Life can be a little complicated I never thought anything of it because
I’m used to the platform and how to do everything but now, I know how difficult
it can be. It’s almost awful. Keep an eye out for more posts in my How To’s.
Exploring:
To be fair you can start exploring right away! However, you
might be frowned upon for doing so but screw it you’re here to experience new
things and have fun. Don’t let anyone stop you from doing so whether you’re new
or not. When I went to certain clubs in my default avatar, I was pushed to the
side from a lot of players but in the sea of seasoned players, you find that
one person who is nice to everyone. I found this individual and were friends
now she took me out exploring even though I have the experience, but she
doesn’t know that. I thank her for being the one person in the whole game that
I’ve talked to that wanted to help and be friends with me in this vast world. I
wrote a post on Noobs and what they fear the most. The answer was acceptance
and it is the truth I can see how newer players could get discouraged.
Honestly, it hurt that players either ignored what you said, talked behind your
back in IM’s, or talked right in front of your face because you didn’t look as
good as some of the other avatars in the area, you’re in. It put a lot of
things into perspective for me but with this one individual, she showed me
around some of her favorite places. She brought me to virtual theme parks,
stores, online museums, you name it we were there. Exploring is as easy as
going to the destinations guide in your browser or hitting the icon that looks
like something, you’d find on Google Maps and picking where you want to explore
in the popular destinations. To the right, you can see what this icon looks
like and to the left, you can see the browser version and how everything is
separated into categories. Exploring and learning the controls is the easiest
part of Second Life anything to do with creation is more advanced. People might
say no but there is a lot to putting a good avatar together at the start as I
explained above. For newer players, I’m posting a small How-To below on how to
explore using the destination guide with photos hopefully this helps some of
you who are reading.
How to use the Destinations Guide & How to Pull it up:
In your Second Life viewer, you will see icons at the bottom of your screen one says destinations click that to pull up a popular or editors pick version of the destination guide.
Or you can open up your browser go to www.secondlife.com and at the top tabs, you’ll find world map click that.
Once you have clicked the world map in your browser on the side you will find the destination guide which is the same thing you’ll find in your viewer to the right of the destination guide in your browser you will find the map and where that spot is located that you’re looking for. Almost like Google World or Google Maps.
If you want the full destination guide at the top there are more clickable words one says destinations click that and it will bring you to the destinations page. The destinations page is labeled by category of what you’re looking for as seen in the photo below.
Click DestinationsWhat the destinations guide page looks like in the browserDestinations guide labeled by category off to the side that you can pick what you’re looking for easily. The page has a recently added places so new places that you can visit in Second Life.They also have an editors pick of some of the places that Second Life individuals and editors enjoyed the most during whatever month it is. For example, these are Septembers editor’s picks.
Once you click a place in the destination guide it will give you two buttons you can view it on that map, I told you about in your browser or teleport straight to it. It will open up in your viewer for easy teleporting and you’re good to go just hit teleport in your Second Life browser when it pops up.
When you click a destination in the web browser this comes up. It has a description of the place and two buttons. One says teleport the other says view on the map. Viewing it on the map will bring you back to the page with the destination guide and the world view map. Teleport will open up a window which you can see in the next photo.When you hit teleport this will pop up or something similar to this if you’re not using Firefox. You will click Second Life and then open link if you want you can click the remember my choice. Then you don’t have to continue doing it every single time. You will then get this in your viewer and you’ll use this to either view it on the map or teleport to the location in your viewer.How it looks like when you press view on map in a browser setting you will get something similar on your map in the viewer as well. I wanted to show this so you knew what would come up if you did it.
Overall, Second Life is a lot of fun but for newer users, it
can be somewhat frustrating to a fault, but it is possible to overcome this.
Now that I know the truth and how hard it can be for newer individuals I’m
going to be releasing more and more How-To’s as you have seen in this post, I
added a few How-To do certain things like finding the destination guide to
explore, etc. If I had to compare IMVU is a lot more user-friendly to start
with virtual worlds but on the other hand, there is more to do and experience
in the world of Second Life you’ll never be bored and there is always something
new you can learn. My experience was interesting, but it had its moments where
I was trying to create an avatar with 0 lindens (Second Life’s currency) which
as I stated is almost impossible to do. Or shape creation which could be more
for the advanced users. The only non-beginner thing I could experience during
this test was avatar creation everything else seemed rather simple and straight
forward when you get used to the Second Life default viewer. This was my
experience some may find it harder than others and that is okay we all learn at
our own pace. If you’re struggling, I encourage you to ask questions even if
you might get ignored and always remember there are blogs like mine aimed
towards newer members getting started in virtual worlds and of course YouTube
videos. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them I’m always
willing to help if I can.
Charming Ellie 