Conventions
Second Life* - Basics
Second Life Community Standards
Hints and tips from Argus Collingwood and NanoGunk
A second life avatar.
This information courtesy of Argus Collingwood.
Here is a rundown of some of the basics of SL.
Here is a list of the sections:
* Help I'm Confused!
* What does that abbreviation mean?
* How do I look at people's profiles?
* How Do I Stop Dancing?
* Missing Image? Gray People?
* I Don't See Anything / Everything Is Slow (Lag)
* Safety Tips
* Search - How Do I Find Things?
* What Can I Do In SL?
HELP! I'M CONFUSED!
If you didn't spend a lot of time on Orientation Island, or skipped over
it in your rush to get into the game, then you missed a LOT of stuff! Here are the links that will let you catch up to the more experienced folks.
Basic Orientation
These places will cover how to use the SL interface to do things like
change your appearance, move things, etc.
Building Tutorials
Here you will learn how to build things and what you can do with the
things you built - these are self-guided tutorials; you go at your own pace.
(Turn around and look for the red vertical beacon)
WHAT DOES THAT ABBREVIATION MEAN?
Here are some common abbreviations that are mostly unique to Second Life:
SL - Second Life
LL - Linden Lab; the company who made SL
RL - Real Life; the meta-place where you need food, restroom breaks, etc
FL - same as RL (unless they mean Florida)
MG - Main Grid (the original main grid, for adults only)
TG - Teen Grid (an alternate Second Life grid for teens 13-17 years of age)
L$ - Linden Dollars; the virtual currency
AV - Avatar, your second life "body"
LH - Live Help; a group of volunteer residents who help people with questions
LSL - Linden Scripting Language; the language used to program objects in SL
LindeX - Second Life's official currency exchange site
Prim - Primitive shape, a basic 3D object such as a sphere, cube, torus, or pyramid
HOW DO I LOOK AT PEOPLE'S PROFILES?
Right-click on them, and select "profile".
If that doesn't work, then:
1) Find their nametag (it's over their head)
2) right click on THAT and select "profile"
If you don't see their nametag, then
1) click EDIT
2) click PREFERENCES
3) "General" tab, for "show names" - click "always"
4) Then try the previous method
WHO PUSHED ME??
I BLINKED, AND NOW I'M SOMEWHERE ELSE AND I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!
You can find out with the following steps:
1) click HELP (top of the screen)
2) click BUMPS, PUSHES AND HITS
If it was a griefer, you'll usually see repeated entries with their name and what type of action it was.
Sometimes people bump into others accidently. Most people will be polite enough to apologize (you'll need to look in your chat buffer - hit CHAT, then HISTORY and scroll back - to see if they did) but some people just may not know (yet) to apologize.
HOW DO I STOP DANCING?
(This also applies to any other animation you can't seem to break)
1) Go to the top of your SL client window
2) Click TOOLS
3) Click STOP ALL ANIMATIONS
Most of the time this will take care of it with a single try. Occasionally,
you may need to do this 2 or 3 times, but usually just 1 time will do it.
If that still doesn't work, then you'll have to quit and restart the SL client. (Also known as "relogging", or "Relog" for short)
MISSING IMAGE? GREY PEOPLE?
GRAY PEOPLE
This is a lag issue - often the gray will resolve itself and people (and
things) will eventually rez in.
MISSING IMAGE
This is a texture issue - You'll sometimes see people wandering around with "missing image" on a white background, You can't really fix it when you see this on other people - it's an SL problem that was introduced in one of the September 2006 patches, and hasn't really been totally fixed yet.
If someone tells you YOU that you have "missing image" on you, THAT is fixable. Replace the clothing or other items with something else in the same place, then swap back. This should force the client to "rebake" the image and send it to the server so people can see it properly. Skins/eyes/basic hair can be switched out if you have something else to replace them with, but CANNOT otherwise be detached.
I DON'T SEE *ANYTHING* / EVERYTHING IS SLOW
Lag (everything being slow) often happens when your computer's SL
cache file gets full. It fills up faster under the following conditions:
* You've been in an area with a lot of avatars
* You've been in an area with a lot of scripts (large shopping malls, etc.)
* You've been on an island and have had movement issues
* You've been online for several hours
(This may have more or less effect depending on how powerful your
computer is - under 3Ghz processor will be more likely to encounter
these issues.)
Other signs of a filled cache include:
* You don't see anyone around you, but see text chat
* Buildings aren't rezzing properly - or at all
* Textures don't tile properly on items
* Gray things that stay gray for a long time
* Blurry textures and pictures that don't un-blur
* Items in your inventory not responding immediately to 'wear'
* Notecards taking a long time to show text that you know is in there
Things you may be doing that may contribue to lag:
* Wearing items with "bling" (sparkle effect)
* Wearing "poofer" items
* Certain scripted gadgets you wear may be script-heavy
The easiest fix is to log out of SL and flush the cache. It will usually take 3-4 times of flushing the cache before the SL client is happy again. The steps to do this are as follows:
You might want to copy these steps to your non-SL text editor...
1) Close the SL client
2) Restart the client but DO NOT LOG IN
3) Count to 10
4) Click PREFERENCES
5) click NETWORK
6) click CLEAR CACHE, then APPLY then OK
7) Close the client
8) Repeat steps 2-7 three more times!!!
9) Restart the client and log in
Yes, this means you may be flushing your cache several times a night
if you're doing a lot of stuff or doing a lot of shopping.
SAFETY TIPS
Status icons may be seen at the top of your SL client window. Each
icon means different things, and it's helpful to know what they mean:
* Red Heart
Means that parcel of land is set to allow "damage" to an avatar.
Combat zones typically are set this way. You do NOT lose any of your items if you are "killed" this way, it just means you are teleported back to your "home" location.
* Hand in red circle with red line through it
Push restrict - means scripted push items don't work. (Combat is usually done via scripted "push" to provide damage)
Technical: "llPushObject" doesn't work
* Box in red circle with red line through it Means you can't build here. The blue "build" button on the bottom of your SL client window will also be affected, and will be dark blue instead of the usual selectable blue.
SEARCH - HOW DO I FIND THINGS?
1) Click EDIT
2) Click SEARCH
3) Do you want mature content? Then check the "include mature content" box. (It's off by default)
The SL searcher works best with SINGLE WORD searches - it tends to get very confused and not give you many results if you use more than one keyword. Use the different tabs depending on what you are looking for:
EVENTS tab will have ads for things to do
POPULAR PLACES shows you the most popular places in SL
-- These also tend to be lag prone because of the popularity.
If you are on a slow machine, be warned...
-- You cannot search on this tab.
CLASSIFIEDS is like the classifieds in the newspaper - you'll
see ads for places, people advertising their services, etc.
GROUPS is where you search for groups by a specific name.
Before creating a group, DO check here - chances are likely
that someone else has already created a group, and it might
be worthwhile just to join an existing, already established group.
PEOPLE is where you search for a specific avatar name, and be
able to pull up their profile. You can do this for any avatar name
in the game.
PLACES is where you search for specific places, such as stores or
clubs.
WHAT CAN I DO IN SECOND LIFE?
There are many places to visit - Hollywood!
* Build / Script
This is one of the things you can do without any additional expense -
Creating things using "Prims" (short for "Primitives"), which are the
building blocks of all inanimate objects in SL, from the smallest gadget to the biggest structure.
Scripting is using SL code to create SL-based programs to do things. Commen items are are tip jars, visitor counters, application forms, and so on.
* Shopping
You can buy clothing, hair, and other accessories
for your avatar. These can range from free or ultra-cheap (at newbie friendly places) to really costly (at places that cater to more experienced SL'rs.)
* Travel
Your avatar can fly, which saves time. Or you can drive or fly a vehicle, or teleport using SL links. Look for interesting places in the search feature.
*** DO respect people's privacy if their doors are closed and/or locked. It's just common courtesy, and not everyone is kind on the first trespass.
* Work
Your avatar can be hired by an employer to do specific jobs (such as dancing in a strip club) OR if you have skills building and/or scripting, you can create your own self-employment within SL.
('adult entertainment' and casino type jobs are pretty common, but there ARE other types of work out there. Some jobs are just harder to find than others.)
If your creations are really popular and a lot of people buy them, you might even be able to make a real-world living off your work.
* Real Estate
Some people make a living buying and selling land. Spend some time just looking around and experiencing SL before going this route - at least a month or two. It also helps to learn what the current going rate is for land - too high and it won't sell, too low and you won't get full value for it.
Real estate sales are not something to jump into lightly - each piece of land beyond 512 will run into tier charges, no matter how long or short a period of time you own the land.
*Second Life® and Linden Lab™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.No infringement is intended.