Comments on: Linden Lab Locks Up Players On Orientation Islands

By: Toddles Lightworker

Toddles Lightworker — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:14:45 +0000

I’ve introduced three people to SL in the last couple of weeks. Orientation Island has been wonderful!! No problem at all. Much better than when I started

By: ZigZag Freenote

ZigZag Freenote — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:43:29 +0000

I am ‘two weeks old’, and I was stuck on the Orientation Island too. I don’t remember how I got out, either someone offered me a teleport or maybe I found that sign. And I kinda regretted later that I didn’t complete all the tasks to learn some things. Well, can’t go back to that one, OI Public is different (hmmm, at least it works).
And as if that was not enough, Help doesn’t do what one expects. You press F1 and get all sorts of support stuff, but no help. Then there is In-World help, which takes forever to load so I closed it long before it loaded thinking it doesn’t work either. OK, Help Island it is, I get the idea that everything should happen in-world. Good idea, unless someone is stuck, or just too impatient. And … can’t push that idea too far. The second world is a graphic, 3D oriented program, one can’t expect it to contain its own internet with all the text features. It just doesn’t make sense, at least not at this point. The existing infrastructure is simply too clumsy to contain even a small, let alone a full blown help system.
And I couldn’t understand it, how can this be? Aren’t they aware that they are losing customers this way? Hmmm, population throttle, scary idea. Yup, it’s a cruel world, they both are, the first and the second. Who knows what kind of manipulations are going on…

By: Aya P

Aya P — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 06:03:40 +0000

I remember the time where Orientation was mandatory in order to get onto the main grid.

Now my second AV could just open search and tp out. Its worth it.

By: Patch Lamington

Patch Lamington — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:36:00 +0000

Right in the middle of OI is a sign which gives out landmarks to allow people to jump to HI. But its strangely invisible… without a floating arrow, a lot of people just don’t notice it.

Meanwhile, most of what is covered in OI (not all) would run better if it ran offline. But that would mean re-writing code in the client to support on offline tutorial experience… so don’t hold your breath.

I do think the new OI is much better than the old one – but only when it works and too often it doesn’t. Having the tutorial guidance via a HUD coded in LSL is just too flakey. As well as what has been mentioned so far, if you change outfit, you can ‘lose’ the HUD, and then might struggle to get it back. Its a good idea, it looks great, but it does need some fixing.

By: Zera Pera

Zera Pera — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:00:58 +0000

Funny, this seems to correspond with my SL time. I started a little bit before that was reported and I had my own issue. Instead of starting on Orientation Island, I started with that HUD thing telling me to do stuff and get stars, but I couldn’t find a way to achieve stars as I was already on the Mainland.

Fortunatly for me, SL was intuitive enough that I could remove the HUD from blocking the left side of the screen and I could change my appearance to not look like I had just spawned there within 10-30 minutes.

I do wonder though, if my bug, starting on the Mainland, and this bug are related somehow?

By: dick burns

dick burns — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:11:17 +0000

no you can’t find nothing at all, if there was nothing there all along…

By: Missdrr Alderson

Missdrr Alderson — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 14:02:23 +0000

Hey.

Idiots.

They’re making a new orientation system based off of MeltingDots.

Stop bitching.

By: Kunoichi Dagger

Kunoichi Dagger — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:54:03 +0000

I just wanted to comment that while there are glitches sometimes that prevent some of the Orientation Island stations from issuing out stars, it does not “trap” them on OI. There is a sign in the center of the island that allows them to teleport off of it, plus you can tools like the Map or the Search to exit off.

Unhelped – Since the day Help Island was created, I’ve been helping out there for about 2 hours everyday, and while I have run into Mentors who did not live up to my standards of answering questions in a clear and profession manner, I haven’t really run into any I’d consider lecherous. Who was this that you ran into?

You are right though.. Throughout the years, I have seen a lot of Mentors come and go, with the exception of die-hard volunteers. Volunteer burn-out is common is you are not altruistic, which would explain why I see them rotated so often. To those Mentors who seem to burn out on answering those commonly asked questions- I recommend keeping a Notecard with answers to the Top 20 commonly asked questions. This way you can easily cut&paste them without boring yourself, or the new resident who is standing around waiting for his/her answer.

I disagree with you, however, in regards to scrapping Help Island. There are so many new residents who choose to go there, that it necessitates 11 sim copies of the island for load-balance purposes. At first, Second Life is very confusing to most people, and that feeling of being lost and out-of-place drives people away quickly if there’s nobody around to help them out. While there was no OI or HI when you and I first started, I feel the inclusion of them these days is necessary to further the proliferation of Second Life.

By: SqueezeOne Pow

SqueezeOne Pow — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:37:26 +0000

Yeah, I created an alt a few months ago and just searched for the “leave now” button. I ended up just using search, I think.

Ironically, it’s what I did when I first started SL back in 2005. The search button is pretty self-explanitory. In such a game it’s best to figure the functions out as you explore. Just like RL!

The way I see it, if you can’t figure out how to get off the island then you aren’t ready to go into SL. That’s just one less new guy stopping at my land, rezzing a bunch of cubes and asking “how do I make this fly?”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:18:57 +0000

heh, first thing I did when I regged was searched and left that damn island.