First steps

I had a new experience last night: I accompanied someone during her first steps in Second Life. Sidi is now a resident of SL: the first person whom I've told about it face-to-face in my RL who actually made the leap. We sat side-by-side in her RL office as she created an account and took her first steps in-world.

Sidi started on the new birthing place (I've forgotten the name already, perhaps they are again called Orientation Islands) and quickly moved on to a shopping district, one of the four starting destinations for people leaving the OI. She was rightly disappointed by the poor quality of the goods on display, so I gave her L$1000 and a landmark to Eshi Otawara's new store, where we met. She was delighted by Eshi's clothes, as I expected, and immediately bought and wore a nice red-and-black checked dress (one that I didn't own, it was important to her that we not look alike).

It was fascinating to see how she felt her way into the world — and in particular I was surprised and pleased to see that she understood right away that it was a world not a game, a society not an entertainment. In fairness, it has to be said that she was primed to see it in this way: she and I have been talking about identity and character and interpersonal dynamics for decades (literally) and I've been telling her about SL since I joined it over three years ago.

While her av was in conversation with others, she kept leaning over to ask me "How do I respond to that? What should I say?" Not because she was lost for words, she is an artist after all, but that she couldn't judge the context. "Do I trust this person whom I've just met for the first time? Do I greet him formally or informally? Should I be warm and friendly or keep him at a distance?" All very astute questions.

She's hooked. She described how the feeling of embodiment in her avatar grew as we improved Sidi's appearance in easy stages. Right from the beginning she referred to her avatar as "me," rather than "her" (or even "it") as many newborns do.

I was shocked to see how difficult she found her first hour in-world. There is so much to learn, and so little in the way of assistance with the learning. Sidi had trouble with many of the concepts of virtuality, in particular movement and camera controls. She said several times that she would have given up if I weren't there giving advice and encouragement.

When I joined SL there was a long, intricate and carefully orchestrated tutorial that took at least an hour to work through, but which gave newborns a thorough grounding in the basics of SL. People apparently complained that it took too long, they just wanted to get the cybersex already, so it was scrapped in favour of a small four-screen tutorial dialog that many newborns never even noticed. That too has been scrapped in favour of six freestanding posters (easier to notice) which tell the newbs things that they won't need for several days or at least hours. Every change that the Lindens make to the newborn experience makes it less useful and more confusing. IMHO YMMV.

The advertising for SL apparently gives the impression that anyone can just rez into SL and immediately start having huge balls of fun with no training or preparation. This is simply not true, and people who come in-world expecting that are disappointed and angry. I think we (and by that I mean the Lindens) must face the fact that SL is big and complex, like every MMORPG-like world is, and that new users need to spend time learning its interface, as they do in every MMORPG-like world. And indeed in reality, RL is full of learning curves too. Every city's bus service has its own ticketing machines, for example. Nobody complains that RL is too hard, though. I wonder why not?

BBBC.2

Today's topic: Write about three positive things going on in your Second Life.

1) I started a little project last week: each day for a month, I would wear an outfit and hair and shoes from my inventory that I had never worn in public before. It's been great fun, even if some of the stuff I've found in there made me glad that nobody can peek in over my shoulder. I'm photographing the results and posting them to a Flickr set called 30/30.

And yes, before you ask, it is easily possible for me to go a month without wearing something I've ever worn before. I remembered as I was writing this that I have several folders full of freebie stuff that kind people gave me back when I was a particularly clueless newbie, some of which I've not even looked into. I reckon I could easily get two months out of them; and if you count shades of the same hairstyle as separate items, I could get through nearly a year. Boots and shoes are harder, I haven't got nearly as many of those.

2) This weekend I reconnected to a very dear friend who has been absent for much of the last year. We spent a lovely evening (my time) dancing at the Blues Junkyard and doing some high-quality plotting and conniving. It was wonderful to talk to her again.

But boo to the other patrons of the Junkyard for being so stingy with their tips! The DJ made a mere L$1150 for two hours' work in front of an audience of maybe 35 avs.

3) I discovered some great live music. I met Grace McDunnough in AVid last weekend, and she invited me to a concert that she was giving later on that day. That was delightful: she has a marvellous blues voice, deep and rich and husky, and plays a pretty mean guitar too. I'm so glad we happened to bump into each other, and/but I wish that she'd play some Euro-friendly concert times (hint hint hint).

BBBC.1

It's that time of year again, the Big Bad Blogger Challenge is here.

Today's topic: Why did you become a blogger? How has it enriched your life?

I started blogging because my typist couldn't talk about "Wol Euler"s experiences on any of the other blogs and websites we were already writing, for a variety of reasons that seemed good at the time. We started blogging in 2004, after we'd been reading people's online diaries and personal websites for a few months (i.e. the word "blog" hadn't really registered yet). It taught us a lot about ourselves and our lives, pointed up many interesting things in what we thought were sterile and dull moments. It's been a treasure and a great joy, and has lead to some strong friendships on- and offline.

Blogging is a community. For me it's primarily a chance to exchange ideas with people whose interests I share but whom I'd never be able to meet in an analog world. This is even more true when Wol blogs about SL.

Own horn, blowing

The brilliant and wonderful and somewhat exaggerating Corvi interviewed me for the Play as Being Chronicles. My favourite sentence from the interview: "We are all approximations and prototypes and just somehow doing the best we can."

I must go and soak my head in the tub for another hour, hopefully it will shrink back to normal size soon.

Time in

Well, that was a long week! My apologies for the delay in getting back online. I hope you enjoyed yourselves in my absence (but not too much).

I am uncomfortably aware that I have been less than fully present in recent weeks, and have not been as good a friend to you as I should have been. I've been in an odd mood this month and have often looked at the list of friends online and thought that I just didn't have enough energy to talk. I felt quite unable to say anything worthy of your attention, and feared that I wouldn't even be able to come up with a "yes" or "no" while listening. My apologies for this, and I hope to be more outgoing and forthcoming in future.

What else is new? The Cushicle is nearly ready for prime time (as we in the industry say), it flies much better than before though still not entirely properly. I have started giving away copies to beta-testers, because it is always good to get other people's opinions and observations. If you would like to be a beta-tester, speak to me in-world and I will give you a copy. All beta-testers will of course get a fresh final-release version free of charge once the last bugs are ironed out.

Happy

I have been in a good mood all week, without any particular reason to tell. Or perhaps with many tiny little reasons that all add up to happiness. One thing that makes me happy is simply being busy, I like having things to do and people to do them with.

I am starting to make good friends in SL, to my surprise and pleasure, and have begun to prepare a home of my own where we might meet — and dance! One of the first things I did was to set up a tango dance animation pair. Watching myself dance in SL has made me want to begin dancing again in RL too, I should join a tango club and take some more lessons this summer.

Corvi and I are in the process of starting a kind of literary magazine in SL, loosely modelled on the New Yorker magazine: our desire is to present good, interesting writing which will be in but not about SL, as the New Yorker is not actually about Manhattan. This is still in very early stages, we are talking about what we would like to do.

My buddy Eidolon has started a business making skins and jewelry, and will open a store soon with a friend of hers, an artist who makes clothes, accessories and furniture. It's been exciting and quite amusing to see them working together, preparing the store; Corvi and I have been advising them on prices because they just have no idea, Lorac had set everything out far too cheaply for the quality of her work. Their store has a blog of its own, and is found in-world at Nip Tuck Island.

And I am working on a little building project: making a very slow vehicle. It will be a kind of flying sofa with cuddle and sitting poses, sleek like an airplane on the outside and satiny on the inside, with wood grain and soft furnishings and cut flowers, something like a mobile gazebo. I will post some photos here as it progresses.