How To Second Life : A Guide For Those Who Are New - Part Two

By Cyfir (Cyfiremmerich)

In part one of this guide, I focused on getting started and taking your first steps in Second Life. In this part, I’ll focus on more advanced features. Before that, though, reader Cynthia Farshore recommended the Caledon Oxbridge University which is an educational center for new and/or young Second Life residents. This place can be found here, Caledon Oxbridge (93/194/27).  Once you teleport there, just follow the numbered path and begin reading the signs. This place goes much more in depth than I could with a series of articles and is a valuable resource.

Now that you’re fairly familiar with the basics of Second Life, I’ll share some more advanced features you can take advantage of in Firestorm. First, assuming that you’re over the age of 18, you can choose to make more Adult locations visible in search (which we will touch on in a moment). Click ‘Avatar’ in the top left corner of Firestorm and then click ‘Preferences’ from the resulting drop down menu. In the general tab, where it says ‘I want to access content rated:’ you can change this to whatever you want. By default, adult locations are filtered out.

In the same General tab, you can also set up your ‘start location.’ You can set this to be the area you designated as your home (World/Set Home To Here) or your last location and you can check the box that says ‘Show on login’ which will automatically show you the location you set when you are first logging in. From this same tab, you can also set up how you want name tags to be displayed and what you want the browser to do when you are away. You may have noticed that my menu buttons are purple. You can set up different colors for your browser in the ‘Custom Colors’ tab.

You don’t have to touch the graphics tab. In fact, your browser should automatically set everything to what your computer can handle efficiently. However, I customized mine to show a little more detail just for the sake of having things look better. I used to get better performance with these settings when I was running Windows 7 with the same hardware. Now I’m lucky if I reach 60 FPS on Windows 10.

In the ‘Move and View’ tab, you’re going to want to click the checkbox that says ‘Disable camera constraints.’ Now hold Alt on your keyboard and click anywhere in the world while moving your mouse around. Check the box that also says ‘Allow the camera to move without constraints through prims’ and the box that says ‘Disable minimum camera zoom distance.’ You now are able to zoom all the way out and see everything there is to see. Holding Ctrl+Alt and clicking while dragging the mouse lets you pan around any fixed point.

In the privacy tab, click the ‘LookAt’ sub tab and if you don’t want others to see what you’re looking at, check ‘Don’t send my look at targets to others’ and ‘Don’t send any lookat targets at all, not even to myself’ for good measure. If you don’t want people to constantly see what you’re editing in world check ‘Don’t send my selection target hints.’

One of the most important tabs is the Backup tab. Click this tab and select the assets that you want to save and back them up. You never know when you may have to reinstall Firestorm only to find that all your settings are now wiped.

Now, to search for any person or place just simply type Ctrl+F to bring up ‘Firestorm Search.’ Here you’ll find different tabs to search for resident names (People), Groups, Places, Events, and Classified ads. This is one of the most valuable resources in Second Life and will help you find communities based on interests of yours. For instance, if you’re in to Star Trek, type Star Trek in the ‘Places’ search tab and you’ll be presented with a list of sims to choose from and teleport to to check out.

Before you go hopping around though, a word on trolls/griefers: Whatever you do, do not feed them. Do not give them a reaction. Do not talk to them. Do not even acknowledge their existence in your space. There are bad actors in Second Life who just want to have fun at the expense of others. If they are bothering you, click the region information in the top center portion of your Firestorm browser. This should bring up the ‘About Land’ menu which should tell you who owns the region. Inform them of the troll and move on with your day. If they are really bothering you, following you, making threats or anything of the sort. You can report them directly to Linden Lab. The easiest way to do this is to right click on their avatar, and click View Profile. At the bottom right corner of the profile window there should be a button with a gear on it. Click that and then click ‘Report’ from the resulting drop down menu. Now click Block in the bottom right hand corner of their same profile window. They should now be a harmless orange cloud.

In part 3, I will be focusing on land and setting up your first home. What else should I focus on in future installments? Sound off in the comments below!

Cyfir

How To Second Life : A Guide For Those Who Are New - Part One

By Cyfir

Counting my older account that I lost the password to, I’ve been in Second life for over eight years. In that time, I’ve learned from many people on how to use Second Life. I’ve done everything from a sim janitor (picking up spare objects that people have lost) to a sim co-owner. However, if there’s one major thing that I’ve learned it’s that there is a major learning curve and thus a sizable barrier to entry into Second Life. I’m hoping that this article will be useful to those who are thinking about joining Second Life, are new, or know someone that is thinking about joining. It’s really not that difficult to learn, and once you get it down, you will take it all for granted.

The first thing that you will obviously want to do is create an account. You will do this at http://www.secondlife.com Click on the ‘Sign Up’ or ‘Join Free’ button and from there you will enter in all your information, choose your username, and begin to choose your first base avatar. Don’t worry because there are near infinite possibilities on how you can customize this later.

Now here’s the important step. Do yourself a favor and skip the download of the official browser. You’ll want to download the third party client called Firestorm instead. It can be found here (https://www.firestormviewer.org). It is much more capable than the official browser and most people you will run into will be using it so they can help you better if you run into any issues.

Once you have Firestorm installed you can go ahead and launch it and enter in your new account information. Your new account’s avatar will likely be plopped in the middle of an info hub. I would recommend walking through this and reading all the signs to get acquainted with basic movements and such. The rest of this article assumes that you went through with that.

One of the main issues that I had when I first joined Second Life was that I didn’t know how to open items that I received in my inventory. I don’t remember there being any infohubs telling me how to do so back then. When you receive an item, your inventory window should automatically pop up for you. To get back to the inventory menu, all you have to do is click on Avatar in the top left corner of Firestorm and then click Inventory from the drop-down. Alternatively, you can type CTRL and I at the same time to bring it up or clicking the button for it in the Toolbar down at the bottom (should look like a briefcase). From here, you can click on and drag the item to the ground or right click on and attach the item from the resulting drop down menu if it’s a hud that provides the object. However, don’t just go trying to drop items from your inventory anywhere. You need to go to a place where you have permissions or “rez rights.”

Usually, you can drop (“rez”) items at sandboxes. One sandbox that I would recommend to those who are new is Curious Sandbox (Curious 20/19/23). This also happens to be where you can find a free feline avatar called the Felis to get you started. Assuming that you’re a furry, this is a perfect starter avatar. To obtain the avatar, find the rotating box below where it says ‘Felis’ on the wall. This particular avatar is not boxed, making it easier for those who are new to wear, but if you did need to ‘unpack’ it, you would go to the sandbox area (the big empty space) and drag the box to the ground. Once you see the box appear on the ground, you would right click on the box and then click ‘Open’ from the resulting drop down menu. The items should then appear in your inventory in their own folder.

If you want to wear the contents of the folder, the easiest way is to take out any parts that you may not need such as alternative ears (pierced ears or none-pierced for instance) or male and female shapes depending on which gender you want to be. Then right click on the root of the folder (the very top of where the folder starts in your inventory where the name of the folder is) and then click ‘Replace Current Outfit’ from the resulting dropdown menu. To save this outfit, you’ll want to click on Avatar at the top right of the browser window and then click Appearance from the resulting dropdown menu. In the appearance window, click ‘Save As’ and name the outfit.

You may have noticed a sign when you arrived at the Curious Sandbox that tells you that you may not be able to enter the sandbox without payment info on file. One of the reasons why I chose this particular sandbox is because this is a perfect opportunity for you to become familiar with your Second Life account. If you haven’t already done so, you’ll want to have payment information on file. While you can enjoy Second Life for free, you’ll really want to buy Linden Dollars (the platform’s virtual currency) in order to buy things that you’ll need. This is especially true when you’re new because you’re going to have trouble finding a Second Life “job.” Most clubs and other places do not hire accounts under a certain age because they want to make sure that their staff know how to use Second Life. That will come in time and before long you may find that you no longer need to hand over real money to buy things in Second Life.

To add payment information, you’ll want to go back to secondlife.com. Once you log in to your account there, click on ‘Account’ in the left hand menu and then click on ‘Billing Information.’ From here, you can add a payment method (such as a debit or credit card or paypal account). You can buy Linden Dollar at any time by clicking the ‘Buy L$’ button near the top right of the Firestorm browser. Simply enter in the amount of ‘L$’ that you need and click ‘Buy Now’ but be careful because it takes a second for things to update as you type them since it has to calculate how much it will charge you for the L$. You don’t want to accidentally buy 50000000L and end up overdrawing your checking account! Now buy yourself a better avatar on the MarketPlace. You deserve it.

In Part 2 of this series, I will be focusing on some more basics of how to use Second Life as well as some more advanced features you can use. If by chance you have any suggestions for what to include in future installments, please feel free to comment or message me.

Cyfir 

Second Advice: Blowing Off Steam

By Nydia and Brandi Tungsten


"I FERKIN' HATE YOU!!!"

   How many of us have wanted to scream that phase at our computer or gaming console because the game we were playing just handed us our butts? Or, we raged at an MMO like World of Tanks or World of Warcraft?

   I am here to give you all the best advice on the net about that when it happens to you…….quit!

    No, not rage quit or give up the game, just stop for now or go to another game.

Games are supposed to be enjoyable, something we do to relax and have fun with, hence to word “play." Too many it seems have forgotten that simple fact and feel they must continue to reach a “daily goal” in order to get a bonus or perk that is dangled in front of us like a carrot on a stick. MMOs make use of this to make sure that they can keep players, providing fun for us is secondary to them.

    So, to make sure you still have fun, walk away when you have had enough from the frustration of a game and go do something else. I have almost 100 games on my PC alone, and I play every one of them.

   I have been told by others, “I can’t play any other game because I HAVE to beat this one." Uhm…no you don’t. You play a game until it’s not fun anymore. One way or another, you will probably stop playing it anyways. Either from frustration to the point where you don’t even want to even THINK about getting on that system because you know it is there, or you rage quit and give up on games completely. As for rage quitting, we have all done it, we get so mad we can’t even think straight and hit the power button….literally.

   When you start feeling the heat of anger building, instead of raging at the “Noobs” and telling them that they all need to die in a fire…. step back and ask yourself this, “Am I having fun?” and if the answer is “No”, then log off and move on to something else. Just like in our real-life lives, if you don’t enjoy something, why do it? ( and no, I am not talking about work so don’t blame me if you quit your job *grin*)   Things like, fishing, hiking, bike riding, long walks off of short piers…..

If you don’t enjoy it, why do it? We have a choice, not to mention a duty to ourselves to stay as stress free possible. Even if you REALLY like a game, like Minecraft for example, there have been times I have had to walk away, for many reasons, one of which if you have ever played with me you KNOW how I feel about creeper swarms (shudders). I get SO FERKIN FRUSTRATED I WANT TO   S C R E A M ! !

   But I log out, get some coffee and go on to something else like World of Tanks, WarThunder, Space Engineers, SL, whatever and I play that for a while. Whatever you do, have fun with it.  It’s not worth your anger and rage to TRY and have fun, because if you’re feeling that …. you’re not.

   So for the first time since I started writing for the Newser, I am giving you all homework. Find a new game you have never played before and try it, have fun with it, if you don’t like it, delete it and try another.

   Now I can hear you all saying “Right, like we’re made of money and rush out to buy games.” You don’t have to buy anything. There are enough free games out there that you can get several good ones with nothing out of pocket. A good source for free games is Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/). They have a LOT of them and Steam is free to join. There are other sites as well, but I have not fully explored those yet so I can’t recommend them.

   But find something and give it a try, and if you find a good one, let me know and I will review it here.
As always, until next time, GOOD GAMING TO YOU!!  (and have some fun)

Nydia Tungsten