Diary of a Second Life Noob, part 2
by Alphaville Herald on 08/02/05 at 4:19 pm
by Montserrat Snakeankle
[In Montserrat's last entry, posted many many SL moons ago, we found her coping with inadequate hardware and a failed attempt to enter SL. In this post, after a $2K upgrade, Montserrat gets back on the horse that threw her.]
diary of a noob: second life, day 1 – rocks and wings
having spent approximately 2000 dollars to get a system and monitor and the rest of the detritus required to meet the systems requirements of the apparently technologically elitist early adopter world that is second life, yours truly got itself an account one recent gray and drizzly afternoon. i am required to say that the first download of the game did not go well. there were sector errors, and on account of those, apparently, the game refused to download itself. so. i tossed that version and downloaded a second one. this one downloaded itself quickly and before long, i was making myself an identity.
i like very much about second life that it is very flexible about creating avatar appearances. i liked the little switches at the bottom that permitted shades and variations of things such as nose bridges, eye corner upturns, the size of one’s head and other things of that sort. it was immediately clear that if i wanted to, i could make myself ugly as shit. i think this represents a weird type of progress: no one in second life seems required to become a boy toy upon entry.
i landed on a grassy knoll, and did the tutorial as i walked towards wherever it was i was going. i walked into rocks and trees and many other things too numerous to mention, on the way. i like the way the tutorial is put together: it addresses questions that you actually might have, such as how to avoid walking into rocks. at the welcome station, although people spoke to one another, no one spoke to me.
my next project was flying. i flew across a bridge once, but when i tried to fly the second time, i ended up at the bottom of the ocean, and like madame butterfly, i kept walking further and further out to sea. i was probably 20 or 30 feet under water and still walking. i was completely lost, and concerned that i would drown before i could figure out how to get out of the water. i tried flying, but i couldn’t get out. somehow, though, i got out. i wondered at the time if uri helped me out – uri knew i was there, so i sent him a short I’M DROWNING OVER HERE message when i was confused about what to do. but then, i don’t know. i think it would be helpful to have some kind of emergency rescue tutorial, for people like me.
eventually i followed uri to what i think is called Bedford. this is a wonderful green place, and i really loved the way the trees were blowing around very gently. i liked the textures in the trees and greenery – i looked at them very close-up. later on i walked into the castle, without walking into any walls, and bought a new outfit made of red leather. uri gave me some black wings. i was happy — for the time being.
later on, i tried flying around to different places. i kept landing on my face, and in the course of flying around and smash-landing, i ruined one of my beautiful black wings. of course now i am utterly heartbroken and my face is tear-stained. if i cannot fix them or replace them, i shall perish on account of the love i bear those black wings. i love those black wings.
Cocoanut
Feb 9th, 2005
What, what? You mean there’s some other way to land besides crash landing? And you mean I could actually ruin my lovely black wings given me by Ouchquack Stern?
Yes, Uri, I am finally in SL! I have been there for several days now. The first hurdle was getting a fast-access connection to the web. I tried that once, over a year ago, by allowing AOL to send me their AOL DSL modem. That was one of the truly most miserable three days of my life, which I spent trying every combination of every computer and phone outlet possible in the house, and calling everyone (at my own expense), from the AOL people to the modem manufacturer to the phone company and around and back again, being sent from one to another. No one could figure it out or help make it work. The whole thing cost me $135, plus long distance phone calls, and I was entirely too traumatized to ever try it again, or at least not for a long time.
And, by the way, I knew about SL probably before any of you guys did – back when it was new and the big problem was nobody was in there to speak of to run into! lol But of course, I couldn’t try it myself for lack of a high-speed connection. Or I would have.
So this time I ordered phone DSL, then Troy talked me into cancelling that and ordering cable instead, since he has had good luck with Comcast Cable. Well, we only have the super crappy Charter Cable here, but I did it anyway.
The cable guy came and installed the cable, but couldn’t get it to work with AOL and also couldn’t find any IE. (My theory is that AOL absconds with IE and won’t let me use it without them.) Finally he gave up. “It pings, it works, bye.” Leaving me to see if I could figure out any way to ever get online besides dial-up AOL. Which would be nice, I thought, considering I was now paying for the cable.
I worked on it that afternoon and managed to get AOL to recognize it at least one in every six attempts, and to not kick me off from it at least one in every two time it recognized it. That night, while on Sims via dial-up, Trish told me to download Mozilla Firefox, and get online that way.
So I did, and presto whammo, I was online without AOL! But then, miracle upon miracles, it also turned out that now AOL was predisposed to cooperate with me! (Maybe cause it realized I was bypassing it with Mozilla, and that scared it.) And in fact, since last Friday, I have been able to get online either with Mozilla alone or through AOL via cable without ANY problem with AOL recognizing the cable or kicking me off because of it.
That accomplished, I proceeded to get on SL. I did not have any of the difficulties that Monserrat encountered, even though my Dell is over three years old. I originally designed the Dell for my mother and her failing eyesight. Turned out that her memory was rapidly failing at the same time, too, though, so I ended up inheriting this computer. Because I had designed it for good graphics is I think why it worked immediately for SL. In any case, I’m very pumped up with myself about it. I figure, all in all, I do quite well for someone who is technologically challenged.
I was wary of SL, though, because, judging by this newspaper, I was convinced it was too obsessed and saturated with sex and, to a lesser degree, violence and miscellaneous nastiness, for me to actually enjoy it. But friends kept saying, no it’s not.
They were right. I think that if I want to find some good sex content, I can. But it is in no way shoved into my face as the main raison d’etre for the entire game. So it’s good to have the choice.
I have had fun receiving oodles of clothing gifts, etc., from friends; playing Trivia, bingo, etc., for money (God knows I need that); dropping in on this and that event; and just traveling around. It’s an awful lot like going on an acid trip each night; you never know what fantastical hallucination you might run into next.
I have met some really interesting, smart, and nice people, too. All told, it looks like there is enough in this game to keep me interested for a long time. (Along, of course, with Sims and Anarchy Online. I believe in always having at least two games to turn to.)
Uri, I will try to find you in the game. I expect you to do your level best to show me some things that will shock the pants off me. Otherwise, I am going to be severely disappointed in you.
Oh yeah, my name there is Cocoanut Koala.
coco
Urizenus
Feb 9th, 2005
wooot! welcome cocoanut!
Cocoanut
Feb 10th, 2005
Hmph. He hasn’t shown me anything shocking yet. Just his castle, definitely the most beautiful and escapist and role-play-inviting thing I have seen yet in SL! He no doubt realizes that very little would actually shock me anyway.
Also, last night I went to a game of Captions, where they put up a strange/funny picture, and everyone comes up with captions for it, then we vote on them. Very fun!
And got a motorcycle stuck to my head. And got kicked offline by my schmucky CABLE company, which finally advised me that they send out too much surge sometimes, or something, and so, well, stuff happens. What I’m supposed to do then is unplug the modem, turn off the computer, turn it back on, and plug the modem back on. That worked. But I hope this isn’t going to be a frequent thing.
Another good thing about SL is that their message boards work. The message boards for TSO haven’t worked consistently, or well, since November of 2003, when they were moved to Stratics, and now they are completely in the toliet, working less often than they don’t work, and when they do work, it’s usually very slowly, and only for a brief period of time before you have to start all over trying to get in. And always, Stratics says “We are working hard to fix this” and it should be fixed “soon.” Maybe so, but I’m not holding my breath. Mostly, I think that even when this current problem (going on for I guess a month now) is supposedly fixed, it will still be the worst-working message board on the Internet. I think EA likes it that way.
Also, the Lindens don’t try to stay as far away from the players as possible. I attended an in-game meeting with one of them where players got to discuss things. The Linden there was not rude, dismissive, sarcastic-quasi-funny or haughty.
There seem to be enough Lindens on the message boards, too. One popped in to help me with my technical issue of not being able to move well, for instance. As far as I can tell, they DO NOT CONDESCEND to players, either in game or on the boards. I have battled basically forever with how oppressed, downtrodden and p****-whipped us players are on the TSO boards, where we are supposed to fall over in paroxyms of gratitude whenever EA actually deigns to provide us with an answer, which isn’t all that often, and only if we ask sweetly, pretty please, with sugar on it. What’s worse, a number of the players constantly defend this situation as all we “deserve.” Can you tell how much this pisses me off? I’ve been pissed off about it for a very long time.
Reading a game’s boards – staying informed and, of course, giving my opinions, whether solicited or not, lol – is a big part of any game to me, so I am drifting away from TSO. Not that Stratics cares; one of the mods told me in game I was just a whiner looking for things to bitch about and that I liked to “attack hard-working people” and my standards were “too high.” I’m still hurt by that and very resentful about it. If EA can’t do enough to run off its players, you can count on Stratics to take up the slack.
On the positive side, some Stratics people and mods seem to have made a new (and very recent) effort to actually listen to some suggestions regarding the site, and I think they may have made a conscious decision to try not to be so condescending. I think part of the problem may be that they don’t get paid. They are just players, and so they huddle together defensively, since they do take a lot of abuse from some posters in PMs or whatnot, and they start to be defensive about the EA people, too. As a result, they end up actually playing a very different TSO game from non-mods, in a way; I hope you see what I mean. It creates a “them-vs-us” attitude which isn’t helpful to any of us in getting communication with the actual EA employees. It distances me from the mods, who are mostly my in-game friends. It distances the mods from each other – there have been blow-ups and power grabs among them, and a lot of hurt feelings – you can tell just by reading the boards. I envision a day when the only active players left ARE the mods, and they still won’t know what hit them. Do the Lindens get paid?
Also on the positive side, EA seems to be easing up a bit on its Policy of Non-Communication. The new customer representative, imo, is doing better than the old one; at least she doesn’t stick out her tongue at us on every post. She has been polite and respectful, and is getting better at answering questions. And Kyle – when he talks to us – is a good writer and doesn’t treat us like dirt. But he is not often heard from; we have little access to him at best; and he has now largely disappeared behind the customer rep again.
Altogether, it’s not like you feel like they are really there, like I do so far about the Lindens in SL. You often feel more like this huge bother to them. People get tired of begging for communication after a while. I think they may be trying to turn the corner on this, but I also think it may be too little, too late.
Anyway, my main point is, there seem to be enough Lindens, and they don’t try to insulate themselves from the players. I don’t think any online community/game can survive without vibrant, on-going, straight-forward communication between the designers and the players. I don’t think EA will ever understand that. TSO has always reminded me hugely of the guy behind the door at the castle in Wizard of Oz – “Go away, go away!” – and when you finally do get in, it’s just this one pathetic little guy working the controls behind the scene.
So in SL, so far, it feels nice to be treated like a human being, both on the boards and in game. So it looks like a pretty good package for a one-time $10 fee. Beats the heck out of us paying $10 a month for TSO to be treated like untouchables.
coco
Cocoanut
Feb 10th, 2005
P.S. Since I strike my own self as a huge two-faced hypocrite right now, I need to make sure everyone knows it’s not like I haven’t trashed the professor and this site plenty, both on this site and on the TSO site, just as I trashed the TSO site and EA’s distance from its players in my post above.
But one thing about it – at least you can say what you want to on here, whether it’s negative or not, and it looks like you can say more of what you want on the SL boards than on TSO boards, too, and without having to put sugar on it. And this site is usually UP. Looks like the SL site usually is, too. So – I drift away from TSO.
coco
RB
Feb 11th, 2005
Wow. Now that’s a different Coco. lol. see here you can actually say things that need to be said, and not be oppressed like on the utopian wanabe mothers corner support group for the emotionally fragile boards at stratics which are rubbish. We don’t want rainbows and lollipops or sickening children like attitudes by some posters we just want casual easy mature rational adult conversation. Give the boards a skin with several shades of pink and be done with it.
- RB
Cocoanut
Feb 12th, 2005
Right, RB, but I have long since said that if nothing else, I give this site, and the professor, credit for allowing us to speak our minds here. I believe I specifically said that in a post on AVH long, long ago. I also long ago posted here that at least this site comes UP when you click on it, which is more than could be said for Stratics. I also said the same thing to Ian in a conversation a long time ago, that no matter what, you had to hand it to the professor for letting us say what we wanted on this site. So, not really a different
coco