Filed under: Newbies, Interviews, Resident Snapshot

This is the 18th in a series of interviews that are being conducted with new residents, in order to gauge the effectiveness of the orientation process, and to gauge disparities between the preconceptions and the realities of Second Life. The questions may be tailored slightly for each interview; responses may be edited for purposes of clarity.

I bumped into Footsy Furse at NCI South in Hamnida. She was willing to talk in detail about her early experiences and was able to articulate them clearly and distinctly.

Second Life Name? Footsy Furse

Second Life Age? 23 days

Where did you hear about Second Life? (Be as specific as you are able.)

Read about it in a newspaper article.

Why did you decide to try Second Life?

It was in a serious broadsheet newspaper, and it sounded fun - the main emphasis was on shopping (for clothes, etc.). The girl who wrote seemed to have produced an avatar that looked like herself - glamorous rl and sl pictures side by side.

Which portal did you come through, if you did not come through the standard process? (for example, "The L Word", NBC, Azure Islands, Mainland Brazil, Big Pond, NMC Campus, Anshe Chung Dreamlands (chinese), Second House of Sweden, etc)

Standard entry (Orientation Island/Help Island)

Which aspect of orientation do you remember best?

Aside from finding a new shape for my avatar, I didn't find Orientation Island very helpful.

The first impression I got of Help Island was that it gave me some open space to escape into and experiment with my avatar without being pestered/chatted-up!

What did you like/dislike about about the orientation process?

Orientation Island was a bit simplistic. I moved on to Help Island quickly - maybe that was a mistake because of my inexperience.

What I did do, though was to buy some books.

Firstly the "official" Linden SL handbook - not for beginners - its more like an intermediate level (who wants to know about advanced scripting when they have only just joined ?) and it misses out a lot of fundamental stuff that you need to know early on such as how to use the pie!

Second: "A Beginners Guide to SL" - much better - written for beginners, but strangely concentrates too much on building.

Third: "Designing for SL" (by Rebecca Tapley) bought it a few days ago via Amazon - by far the best book of the three - concentrates on building/molding your avatar before introducing building. I have to say an excellent book.

My first impressions of Help Island didn't hold up when it came to Help Island Public. It was more violent than I expected - and rather juvenile. I thought the kids had a place of their own, but it was obvious just listening in to conversations that most of the avatars were driven by male teenagers. Especially on the crowded central platform - lots of testosterone showing off.

I was surprised by the amount of griefing there and I didn't know what to do about it or how to defend myself.

I was attacked almost every day by a giant mesh tin can, that "captured" me and dragged me around and eventually dumped me far out to sea. I almost abandoned SL after a few days of that.

When I asked Helpers there for advice I was laughed at at first, mainly by the other avatars around. My main impression of the helpers there was that the helpers were not too interested in newbies! I found a much better place to get help a few days later.

The place I go for Help is Fishermans Cove (NCI Beach). It just seems to attract a nicer, more mature bunch of avatars.

Is Second Life different to how you expected it to be, in what way is it different?

None in a gaming sense - I'm not a gamer. I was expecting it to be more mature. Also the whole net seems to be rather fragile. [Prophetically, the simulator crashed at this point and it took us some time to get logged back in and connect to each-other again]

There are some very nice, very helpful people around. It's just pot luck whether you bump (no pun intended) into them. I would like to send very special thanks to one avatar - Afon Shepherd - who has been consistently good and mature.

One thing I cannot yet comment on is the social life in sl because of the limitations of my technology (Slow PC and connection) I haven't had any yet, and I think that is a shame.

What do you like/dislike about the user interface for Second Life?

The pie menu is ok - it's just that there doesn't seem to be any explanation anywhere of how it works. The books I mentioned earlier do not explain it. and I can't open/download many notecards. [There's a notecard bug going around at the moment, readers - hopefully fixed in an upcoming release]

[Footsy had a couple more things to add]

I think it has terrific potential - but the technology (not just mine) is not there yet e.g. I read in the books about the the very small prim limitations, etc. Presumably Linden are working on a much more robust and less limited SL mk2 ?

I have met so many people form so many other parts of the world that I would not have got to interact with in such a small timeframe.