Wanna Be A Second Life Resident?

Here are my Tips for Wannabe Residents:

Creating/Choosing your name

- Take your time when you choose your name. Create a cool name combination, if possible a very unique one, since your avatar might perhaps develop an interesting life later on. Now if you later regret your name choice, sorry for you.

Speak your name out loud, to test acoustically, if the first name matches with the last (that's how picky I am). Remember -- you can not change your name anymore, once it's done! You will have to start all over again with a new account and you can't transfer most of the items in your inventory to your other avatar, cuz most items are not transferable.

If none of the available last names on the Second Life website appeal to you, go to SL Name-Watch to be able to choose from all the available names. Available last names are mainly scattered on different communities, for registration.

- When creating your first name, please write the first letter in capital, since we all went to school and that's one of the first things that we have learned ---> names start with capital letters and that is how you write them too!

- You might want to consider creating a unisex name, so you can change your gender any time you want to, or if you aren't sure yet if you want to create a female or male avatar.

- Avoid creating your first name in an AOL IM/Chat type, like combined with numbers e.g. sexyfucker123 or with special characters ##++deekhead%§" or something like tHiS. People tend to not take you serious, cuz your name will look like it was made in a rush, just to have quick seXXorz or griefing or scamming activities. Some people will also misjudge you as either being illiterate, a 12 year old kid, or a teenie (though I know lots of teens who are better).

You can say what you want, but that is the first impression you will make. Imagine if your boss in RL will write his name like that, plus his name not capitalized, I wonder if you will still respect him or take him serious as a business person. Me personally, I do have prejudices about those people. Call me "shallow" or a "snob" if you want to, but that's just the way it is.

Once you "rezz" (as in appear or your image has fully downloaded) for the first time in world and you find yourself at a welcome area,

DO NOT:

• Accept anything that a random stranger gives you
  
• Accept a bite offer from retarded vampires
  
• Accept group invites out of no where
• Accept friendship request from people you haven't even talked a single word with
• Click "yes" if something wants to animate you

Pop-up menus in blue will often appear on your screen, especially if you are new. Read everything first before you click on it. Learn to DECLINE everything first, before you get used with the user interface and navigation. Everything will seem to be very confusing and overwhelming at first, so you won't have the ability yet, to get a full overview in what you are actually accepting. So it's best to "decline".

Scammers and griefers mostly hangout at welcome areas or info hubs, cuz their special targets are newbies, so be careful.

Optimizing Your Avatar/Avatar Make-Over

Once you managed to get a decent name and finished the whole registration process, you are now ready to customize your avatar or "avie" as we say it in SL language. You will have some random default avatars in your inventory, under library, to choose from, aside from the choices during registration on the SL website.

Now if you don't want to look like a typical noob, that will somehow attract griefers to send you thousands of miles up in the sky by orbitting you, avoid all those random freebie places, that you will find, using the search option in world (sounds logical doesn't it?). And why? Because all you will get there are mainly crap items, from BIAB (business in a box) sources, ripped or stolen contents.

Remember, you don't need to spend any single cent in SL, and you can still look good (or avoid looking like a noob), wearing freebies (free items) from well-known designers. You just need to know where to find them.

Follow these tips:

- Join the groups of high quality designers. They mostly give out high quality items free, to their members.

- If your avatar customization is quite urgent, go to The Gnubie Store. You can get free items, from well-known designers there.

- Go to high quality designers' stores and check if they got freebies available to everybody or especially for residents under 30 days.

- Browse XStreet SL for freebies. You can sign-in with your SL avatar name and password. Shopping at XStreet SL is more comfortable, than teleporting all over SL. You can search and browse the items faster. Search for items that costs zero L$ at XSL, there are tons of them there. Then all you need to do, is to send it to your avatar in world. Remember my tips regarding unpacking boxes (see term "rezz").

- Join hunts. Many big time designers join hunts to promote their products. All you need to do is to find those hidden items. Now where and when a hunt is, I have no idea. It's best to read SL fashion blogs, to find out about them.

- Avoid bling. Period. Why? Just avoid it.

Now if you are willing to spend cash in SL for your avatar customization, I'd say that you will need approximately 10.000 L$ (around 40 US$) for an absolutely stunning avatar. I can drop you landmarks for great shopping places, or check out my list of "where I shop" at the very bottom of this post.

Second Life Residents' Common Terms (No chronological order)

Here are some common SL terms that residents use, so you can understand, when they try to tell you something:

Rezz, rezzing or rez - is when an image appears in world, thus being downloaded by the client. For example, to rezz an item/object from your inventory, you need to drag it out of your inventory and rezz it on the floor, like a box, house, table etc.

Take note: you can only "rez" items that appear as a box icon in your inventory. But to be able to do this, the land you are on, has to have "build" enabled. You can see it on your User Interface, at the very top (e.g. if there's a small box icon there, that means that you can not build, thus rezz an object on that land).

Many newbies make the mistake of wearing the box, instead of the intended item, which might look very entertaining to experienced residents, but it's very upsetting for the new resident. The box, which is the package of the item, must be rezzed first (drag it from your inventory to the floor, on "build" enabled land), right click it, then choose "open" from the pie menu.

The content will now load (see the tiny icons loading in the "contents" window). Once it's done, you can click "copy items to inventory". Now click the "recent items" tab in your inventory, find the folder and you can now wear the items, using right click and "wear".

TP - shortcut for teleport, like if someone will say, I will TP you or please TP me.

LM - shortcut for landmark. You need a landmark of a location to be able to teleport there or you can also enter the coordinates in the map field, which is more complicated. If you are at a place that you really like, you can create a landmark by going to the menu ---> world ---> create landmark, so you can go back there again next time. You can also rename the landmark, so it's easier for you to find it in your inventory later.

Remember SL is a huuuge place! You can also mark the place by putting it in your "picks" under your profile. Just stand at the location, go to your profile, by right clicking on yourself and choosing profile under the pie menu. Then under the "Picks" tab, click "new" et voila! Your favorite spot is now marked in your profile.

Please also be aware, that everybody can check out your profile, so if you happen to like a penis club or whatever suspicious activities are goin' on at that certain place, I suggest that you rather create a landmark, than putting it in your picks. Feel free to add my store and lounge to your profile picks, if you happen to go there.

IM - private chat. This is the one you're suppose to use, if you are having a pixel bumping session or seXXXorz in SL. Don't expose those using the open chat, since not everyone will be amused about your dirty talks. Warning! Explicit words are not allowed on a "PG" land!

Be careful also not to get confused, when many people are messaging you per IM at the same time and talking to you per open chat. IM is private and you definitely don't want to answer somebody else, while meaning to send it to another avie. Happened to me many times already.

SLT - Second Life time, that's the time on the right hand side on the top of your screen. Events, such as parties, live concerts etc. are always announced referring to SL time, to avoid confusion.

Rezzday - is a resident's or avatar's birthday. You can see a resident's birthday, when you check out their profile.

Noob, Noobie, Newbie, New Resident - that's you.

Notecard - is a writing pad you can create in your inventory, rename, then pass on to someone, by dragging it to their profile. Most designers or sellers, insist for a notecard instead of IM, when you have certain inquiries about their product.

Client/Viewer - is the program/software you are using to run Second Life. There are different versions available, also customizations by other residents. The official viewer is available on the SL website, under downloads. There are also beta or first look versions such as Snowglobe, that can be downloaded from the SL website.

UI - shortcut for User Interface

Pose balls - are balls scattered all over the grid, which you can right click and sit, to activate, also used for pixel bumping. These balls have scripts and animations in it. So when you sit on one, it will animate your avatar. If you see pairs of pose balls that are mostly in pink and blue, those are for couples. Both have to right click and sit on those balls, to activate the animation.

HUD - is the abbreviation for Heads Up Display. A gadget that you can wear, which is composed of different menus for setting up, adjusting or activating certain objects. It can be a weapon, a dance gadget, a tool etc.

AO - is the shortcut for "animation overrider". A gadget that you can wear, to eliminate all the stupid noobie movements, by replacing it with more stupid movements. Well it depends on which animations you loaded your AO with.

My tip is not to buy complete AO sets, but rather just get a free ZHAO HUD and load it with your chosen animations. If you see some female avies looking like they need to pee, or doing poses like a dork, then they are using an AO.

RP - is the shortcut for role play. Many avatars are constantly in their role play characters, like slaves, tinies, furries, vampires, trees, mermaids etc. Hardcore role players go to role play sims with special themes.

When going to those sims, you have to obey and respect their rules, which are automatically distributed as a notecard, as soon as you enter the area. Many avatars speak in a third perspective using the "/me" command before the main sentence when typing in the chatbox to create a story line type of atmosphere, e.g. I can type "fuck you" in the chatbar and it will appear like this:

CanTell Mizser: fuck you

If I want it to be more dramatic, I can type /me shouts "fuck you!", spits on his face and angrily leaves the room, slamming the door behind her; and it will show up like this:

CanTell Mizser shouts "fuck you!", spits on his face and angrily leaves the room, slamming the door behind her.

It is not allowed to use the open chat for "regular" conversations, when visiting role play areas. It is heavily demanded to emphasize it with ((OOC)) (means out of character) before the text, so people know, it's not a part of the role play chat.

SIM - shortcut for sim node or sim host, is the physical server machine which simulates one or more regions (see Wiki). A region is like a country in real life.

Lindens - there are two definitions. First, a Linden is a Second Life employee or someone who officially belongs to Lindenlab. All people who officially belong to Lindenlab, carry the last name "Linden".

Now since SL is mostly an RP world, some disguised as an "SL Police", "SL Agent", Fireman, Superman or whatever might approach you, to scare you off, by threatening to arrest you. Don't be scared, since they are all wannabes. Only real SL employees with the last name "Linden", have special Superman powers.

Second, residents also call the Second Life currency "lindens", which is the shortcut for Linden Dollars. Which means, you can not buy and sell a Linden, but you can buy and sell Linden Dollars.

LL - is the shortcut for Lindenlab.

RL - is the shortcut for real life or FL as in first life. Take note that it's best not to give out personal infos at all to anyone. You can stay completely anonymous in SL. It is also against SL TOS (terms of service) to give out personal infos about other people, if you happen to know them.

Skin - is the most important part of your avatar, which will give it the certain personality, that you are trying to achieve. Remember to always try out the demos first, before you buy them. Also, it is very important to have a matching shape for the skin. No matter how great the skin is, it will still look horrible, if the shape is not well made (see shape).

Shape - is another important part of your avatar. This is the 3D mesh that holds the skin. Avatars wearing the same identical skin, may completely differ from each other, when using different shapes. You can create your own shape if you have a good eye for aesthetic or knowledge about the human body proportions. Otherwise, you might end up like this:

Or like this:

Or maybe like this:

Or perhaps like these:

Or this:

Hau! Wanna see my weener?!

If you are not yet very confident in making your own shape (unfortunately, too many people are, which ends up like the above examples), get one at C-Stylez Boutique (if you are a female avie) or if you are male, ask a male avatar where he got his shape, in case you see one, wearing a shape that you like.

Where I shop (some of the stores, since I can't remember all)

Skins (Check out C-Stylez Boutique for the matching female shape):

• Celestial Studios
  
• Laqroki
  
• Belleza
• Damiani
• Naughty Designs
• Abyss
• Mai
• Pixel Deep

Apparel (Including shoes):

• Coco
• Ce Cubic
• Maitreya
• Laqroki
• Armidi
• HOC
• Akeyo
• Soreal
• Fnky
• Grueling
• Draw Machine
• J's
• SLink
• Tesla
• Shiny Things
• LeeZu Baxter
• Enkythings
• De La
• Ivalde (vintage clothing)
• Ingenue (vintage clothing)
• Icing (vintage clothing)
• RFyre (gothic clothing)
• Nona Hedges (gowns and formal)
• Tres Beau (gowns and formal)
• Nicki Ree (gowns and formal)
• Shai dela Croix
• Barerose Tokyo
  
• Cupcake Region (lots of cool designers located there)
  
• Le Look Region (lots of cool designers located there)
• Albero Region (lots of cool designers located there)

Hair:

• Hairspray Region (lots of hair designers located there)
• Waka & Yuki
• Maitreya
• Armidi
• Red Queen
• 69
• Amrita
• Carlucci
• DejaVu
• Mirai
• Bijou

You can also read SL fashion blogs (just google them), to be updated about latest releases of many SL Designers.

I hope my tips were a bit helpful to you. If you decide to sign-in and explore Second Life, look-up my SL name (CanTell Mizser) using the in world search. Holla at me if you need help and I will try to help you as much as I can, when I'm in world. Enjoy exploring!

Yours
Can'Tell