Noobie Doobie Doo... Oooh La La!! Part 1

I divided this topic into two parts, cuz it's a very picture heavy post. The first part mainly shows the new resident first experience and the second part goes more into the fun part -- tweaking the avatar.

So I thought it was time again to create a new avatar, cuz it's been a long time since I created my last one. I also wanted to see what has changed in the first experience process. As always, I wanted a little challenge when creating a new one. I always have a certain concept or theme even before I choose the avatar name. This post is picture heavy, so please wait a bit, if the pictures don't load that fast.

I had to register from a third party site to get a certain last name (check out SL Name Watch). The option to choose an avatar from the variety of choices, when you normally sign up at the main Second Life website, was therefore not available. So when I rezzed first time inworld, I still couldn't decide the gender for my avatar (most names of my avatars are unisex).

I actually thought of creating a male avatar this time, which will be a freebie one. This means, it is more challenging to put up a stunning male avatar together for little money, because unlike stuff for females, it's more difficult to find really decent stuff for male avatars. So this is how my avatar first looked like:

But he looks kinda sad, boring, worthless and griefer-inviting. So I thought just to be on the safe side, I should create a female one first, cuz first of all, they look better, secondly, I can dress it up faster.

I also recalled, that there are some new pleasant newbie avatars in the default inventory library. I remember the student female looked pretty well, so this was the transformation:



Mind you, the female avatar was around 2 feet tall (just compare the sign in the background), no wonder we have so many giant female avatars walking around. Now it's time for the first steps, before being released to the huge SL world. Let's see how it goes this time (click on images to enlarge):

This is basically going through the "how tos"

After going through those "how tos", I thought of going to Discovery Island, as the first place to go, cuz they have very cool freebies over there.

You need to check out Discovery Island, it's very well made, showcasing a very pleasant image of Second Life and a sample of some of its finest contents.



Here's showing you the different Linden Home styles for residents, who want to have a home in Second Life, without the hassle of finding a land, then purchasing etc.

You need to sign up for a premium membership, which will cost you a fee of 9.95 US$ per month if you pay monthly (plus VAT for european countries, this means it's more expensive for people like me, which sucks), 22.50 US$ if you pay quarterly, and 72 US$ if you pay annually, which is the cheapest payment plan (it results to 6 US$ a month).

You can of course keep your basic membership, which means -- free, since you actually don't need anything in Second Life and you also can get all the wonderful stuff for free. You just need to know how and where to find them.

But if you decide later on to have a little home or "privacy" (there's no real privacy in SL, since pervs still find a way to hide behind the bush and camera zoom at you) or open a little business, you probably will consider going premium.

The benefits to being premium, is a weekly allowance of 300 L$ and a free 512 mainland land, that you can purchase inworld, or a linden home, which already includes a themed house.

Here are examples of the themed Linden Homes:


Pretty bad they don't have vampire and cyber themes, though they are very common communities in Second Life. That's it for the 1st part! Up next is the 2nd part, which is tweaking the avatar. See you!