(This is the promised translation of the German guest-blog from the 14th of June 2009, see the link of the last blog-entry – there are some pictures also!)
Oh, I didn’t make this title. That was Carina Raymaker, who asked me to write a guest-article for their blog. I like writing, also in chat and IM – yes, sometimes too much! – so I said, I would try. I never wrote a blog before… so be patient please!
May I introduce myself: Mederia Seerose, the first time in SL at the first of May 2009. I didn’t want to stay long! I read an article from a writer – a total newbie in all online games, platforms or such things – telling her first steps in SL. She wanted to look for advertisement for her work. What she found was the possibility to learn and to discuss with colleges. She was very astonished to find a very different SL than she suspected. My picture of SL had for sure some worse prejudices as hers…
Ok, there I was. Because I didn’t like all the “normal” avatars and I had played a long time online-role-playing-games I stand there as “gamer-girl”. The other avatars around me looked all very different… And what are you doing first in an online-role-playing-game? You are working at your character to get an individual look. I don’t know it exactly anymore, but I guess, I stood two days in appearance-mode (ah, yes, I use an English viewer-version – I am used to that) and changed body and clothes and hair. At the end I was a waddling, female, longhaired something in sneakers, pink blouse and blue skirt. Good that I hadn’t found the screenshot-option then!
In between I waddled over the arrival-isle (nobody could tell me till now, why this walking-animation for women are so horrible…) and I read one station after the other. I learned to fly! And I could get rid from this strange attachments of the gamer-girl at least. Weird stuff… I guess, a lot of newbies are teleporting very fast to one of the interesting landmarks advertised on the boards on the. I was too much a coward to do so! Where is the manual please?!?! Then I found a teaching-board about building. Ohhhhh! Well, I told me, THAT is interesting. I took a simple chair out of my newbie-inventory, sat down and read page after page. It last some time, I think, there are three boards of building there. But I was fascinated!
Then the question: Where now? The writer stayed in German-speaking-sims, told a little bit about Berlin and starter-areas, where newbies could get patient help - without she would have been very lost. Ok, so I looked at the landmarks for something like that. THANK YOU German mentors team, that you introduced yourself there! German newbie-help with sandbox. I had no idea what a sandbox in SL should be, but there was a remark of the technical college of Cologne and this is not so far away from me, so I chose this landmark.
Hm… in front of me a signpost and a glowing ball, behind me a sculpture of a big sandbox, signs with “No Sex, No Advertisement, No Weapons”, all on a wide sheet of sand, in the distance some deck-chairs at a coast and on a hill some buildings out of a lot of glas. I wasn’t able to read the signpost because somebody was talking to me almost immediately in German: “Hello, Mederia. Can we help you?” It’s a pity that I don’t know anymore, who of the mentors it was – yes, you know historical moments only afterwards! –, but from there I was glued to them. ;-) There own fault!
To describe in detail, what I all heard, learned, asked, talked, looked, build, danced… over the next weeks how and when on Pixelpark of the German mentors is impossible. First I walked through the teaching-exhibition in one of the glass-buildings on the hill, then I followed the learn-path on the field, walked through the Newbie-village with all the freebies and learned a lot, took 1000 freebies and/or example-stuff and for sure 100 notecards with a lot more landmarks – I even read them! I drove my first SL-car (I drive a lot better in RL…), took part in my first treasure-hunt (I found all bears on the estate! Yes!) and danced at the first “Disco”. Thanks, Joran, for the great 80s party!
I got rid of my waddle-walk at the first day also. Carina gave me a free AO and I am happy with that till now! (Ok, at the time of this translation Mederia is wearing a well made and payable Lady-AO.)
And my skin is looking a lot more real and healthier now, isn’t it?
That there are skins I learned there. Also that a lot of the better looking clothes are made out of special textures and/or prims.
To make myself a little bit nicer – clothes, dances, hairs – I looked for some freebie-malls and took every time all the freebie-textures with me. You never know…
In fact nobody needs more than the four sims of the German mentors to fill your time. But: I wanted to see a little bit more of SL still…
There helped so nice things like the question where this tiny fairy was coming from that was flying around an avatar. Prompt I had a landmark, looked around there, found my first lucky-chair (I didn’t understand really what it was…) and won my first freebie! A little fairy, I called her Orchidee.
Somebody told me of Starax, a well known artist of SL, who made such things like the magic wand, and gave me a landmark to a sim with some of his things. The visit there was really impressive. He made incredible things with the possibilities of SL!
By the way I took at the fashion-exhibition at this isle a beautiful freebie-gown…
I got from Carbon the hint to look for the "Ivory Tower Library of Prims" because there would be an exhibition for builder stuff. I am reading still!
And I learned just at the begin that there are avatar-profiles. And that it can be interesting to read this profiles. I forgot – another historical moment gone in the mist of history – in whose profile I read first about the German role-playing sims Carima. I found this world with the search function and I teleported. I reached an info-house full of notecards… Did I tell you, that I have the bad habit of reading notecards?! After a long long time of reading and the visit of the surrounding stalls with role-playing-stuff I took the tag “visitor”, placed it over my head and went for a walk. I am role-player since about 20 years, online-role-player half of this time, so I it was easy to find my way on Carima. It led to a lot of new tasks and projects…
I like handiwork and since the moments in front of the info boards about building I was searching for something I would like to build – and that some other would maybe like to buy. I looked around the elves of Carima. Dresses? More than enough! Weapons? Uh… I don’t like weapons so much and the scripts in them seem a lot too complicated (yes, I take part in Isabel’s scripting-course, but there I am a bloody newbie!). Houses? All built. Jewellery? Oh, there wasn’t so much. And then my next question: “How do you make nano-prims?”
At this moment no mentor was online. But there are more than enough answers at the internet! There is a page http://www.mermaiddiaries.com . The owner has a shop in SL with clothes, jewellery and hairs, also you can reach her tutorials via a wand-board in her shop. I found the tutorials of her blog very understandable and helpful, something for the building-starter! And so I built my first nano-prims and my first nano-prim-jewellery…
Ah, another important source are tutorial-movies. The movies from Torley Linden – one link is integrated in the learn-path of the German mentors – are well made, but also the witty tutorials from Wintercardia on YouTube about the freeware programme SculptyPaint were and still are a real help – and not only for building.
About clothes: I pulled my ears at my first shape to some elfish ones – more just for fun than planned. They fit still. But my clothes… my first freebie-elf-dress was very unpractical. Then I wore the clothes of the male elf from the Linden-freebie-inventory – a little bit better! But then I decided that it wasn’t that also and made my first prim-skirt – after some studies at the internet. Doesn’t look so bad, but it can be better still! :-D
Well, now I had made my first jewellery and worked on my first dress. But what could you ask for that? How can you sell such things? Somebody told me about XstreetSL. Ah, yes! Exciting! Oh, there are a lot of links to shops!
In fact: Lucky Chairs are a good possibility for a newbie to get some nice or witty things for nothing and to see something of the world – and although this is the world of shops it is a important part of SL. Carina told me early, that SL has groups of people, who hunted for Lucky Chairs together, but only the “landmark of the week” of the German mentors to the Lucky Tribe led me to such a group. The nice thing on Lucky tribe is the fun they have to play, may it Lucky Chairs or other things. I joined – first hesitating – the group and played in the begin the Fnoridan-Labyrinth. Ha, I found all keys and almost all gems! Maybe I will go back once to find the last one also… ;-) And if you begin to collect “kudos” (points for more freebies) then it is getting addictive! Two times a week I am for sure on a walk with the Lucky Tribe tag above my head!
Ah, told I, that I rented yesterday my first stall at Carima and that you can by my first jewellery at XstreetSL?
The ideas for the next pieces are growing now… (they are ready now and only waiting for a nice box ;-) )
And I and my little fairy Orchidee will need a house with the elves one day. Youngelf Mederia should get a home. And I want to build this house myself, sure!
Uhm, what I am doing in RL? Enough to know that I will never ever know all of SL and never will be able to use all its possibilities.
See you!
Yours
Mederia Seerose and Orchidee
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