Watch: 18 Years Later, "Second Life Still Can't Communicate to New Players What They 'Do'"

This recent video from gaming YouTuber Micky D is hilariously cringey but necessary viewing, shared by reader Lyndka Cochrane as a response to Second Life's new glitzy marketing video.

As Lynkda comments, "There's still an 'image' problem around what Second Life is and how to play it or live it", going on to observe:

Apparently this sort of video is causing concern at the Labs. It would seem that the new user experience is still not hitting the mark, the "portals" at the starter area seem to confuse folks nor does there seem to be much in explaining about L$...

Watch the video - it's tragically funny in that some 17 years later - Second Life still can't communicate to new players what they "do".

(Eighteen, actually!) It's certainly a major reason why that to do this day, Second Life attracts 300,000 to 400,000 new account sign-ups every month, but still steadfastly refuses to grow.

Comments

[Yoofaloof Pacer]

The thing is if I were into Call Of Duty and Battlefield I'd probably have had the same attitude when I first logged in. But I was looking for a social multiplayer game, with creation tools and its own currency. Hence why I still stuck with it and why I'm still here years later.

[madeline blackbart]

It's really just a display of how antiquated the tech behind SL is comapred to every other game and virtual world. The UI and functionality of sl is and always has been clunky. Every action takes a ton of steps when in other games it would take one. The inventory system is just....a mess...it was bad even when SL released. The game struggles desperately to render everything in it because the graphics engine is so outdated. Game play wise (because wither you think SL is a game or not the functionality is still best described as game play)and graphics engine wise, Yes SL needs to be completely reworked. (or at minimum the default graphics settings should be set lower due to how hard it is for computer, even good ones, to render.)

Barring all that the SL community tends to be vary insular. It's difficult to find communities that meet your needs/interests and even if you do, personally, I find them often very cliquey. On top of that a LOT of places ban people who are new or have played less then a month. I genuinely do not know why LL's suggests places that ban new players on there featured list it's just confusing to new players and makes the community look bad, really bad. Seriously if they were trying to make SL's users look unfriendly AF it's working. SL's built in search doesn't help either.
The whole reason that the LL's suggested list and other sites that came before it exist is due to how hard it is to find nice locations to visit in the search in world. When you search you get tons of unrelated results where people just popped in what they thought would be a popular keyword in the descriptions. There's generally no images of the place in question, the description is brief to the point of near uselessness because it has to be, there's just no realistic way to get a good feel for where you're going. There's also just SO MUCH PORN. LIKE A LOT. and yes you can turn off adult content but even if you do there's still a lot. If you want none you have to turn off rated M to really. The selection of rated G sims is not as interesting as those on rated M and a lot of really nice rated M sims could be G rated but aren't for one reason or another. The search is just.....terrible.
Saying, oh well he feels that way because he's a call of duty player is a cop out at best. The issues he complained about was not about the community or potential content or idea/concept of SL. They were genuine issues that the community of SL has known and complained about for years. Heck, I remember complaining about them 8/9 years ago when I joined SL. SL needs a rework in a lot of areas and possible a new graphics engine. I say all this because I love virtual worlds and want them to do well and I love SL and not as a "hater".

[Lyndka Cochrane]

"On top of that a LOT of places ban people who are new or have played less then a month. I genuinely do not know why LL's suggests places that ban new players on there featured list it's just confusing to new players" - madeline

It's almost as though people ignore the "Newcomer Friendly" category in the Destination Guide Floater & then get surprised when locations not in that category turn out to be "not friendly" :P

The Labs now seem to be trying to take thew view that all locations entered in the destination guide floater should not automatically eject new avatars (regardless of land owner preferences on the matter).

My initial point still stands that some 17/18 years later - Second Life still "struggles" with a lot of new players to describe what it is, what they can do/create - that it's an online community (and like any other there are expectations from folks already in that community about newcomers are expected to "behave")

[Kaylee West]

Live staff inworld 24/7 whose job it is to support newcomers...Linden has been dodging this for years. Cost is a factor for sure, but then again, as we all know you can be working on other things on your computer when things are quiet. Last week during our PPTELL 2021 conference (https://pptell2021.tcsl.ntnu.edu.tw/index.php ) we had live staff in the reception area for three days to welcome and support all visitors (all academics who had not used SL before), many of whom were first timers. In our post-conference survey we received a lot of positive feedback.

[kenz]

New player sure cannot get those 3 elements to gain satisfaction for addicting to SL: process, achievement, and friendly. It is just loading every possibilities to a new comer. I really think that currently is even worst than the old day, at least not to get rejection. I really do think till today that LL position themselves as server space provider. They do not or not willing to create and interfere the SL content much.
From the video what I can see the company only can do the thing rightly by company order. The company cannot do the right thing. They even cannot secure their main platform to play SL - the viewer. I am sure that I will reduce 90% of playtime in second life IF firestorm viewer do not existing anymore. There are a lot potential in SL for further development but the company just wasted their time of new development.
This company had so many crisis in the past, 3 or 4 times? May be that making the company do not dare to step from their comfort zone, OR may the cow has enough milk that they do not willing to take any risk.
I agree that the engine has problem, 25 or 30? avatars per sim is a joke for modern gaming platform. When those game require 60fps, we are lucky to have 20fps in SL. Dressing is also a problem too. The concept of wearing is weird, complicated, and unusual in SL.
There are many many issues.

[madeline blackbart]

It's almost as though people ignore the "Newcomer Friendly" category in the Destination Guide Floater & then get surprised when locations not in that category turn out to be "not friendly" :P - Lyndka Cochrane

As if that's a real fix for that issue. It's not. "Newcomer friendly" as a category reads more as places that teach you how to play. A new player that wants to go to a club isn't going to click "newcomer friendly" they're going to click clubs only to find out they ban new players and think gee this community is hostile/unfriendly. Guess every other category is just "newcomer unfriendly" then since half the places they go they're blocked from. :P

[DevinVaughn]

Ok, just a thought here. If AI and machine learning are replacing people right and left, why do we need 24/7 live Lindens to hold the hands of noobs? Why cant we use Machine Learning to make a bot guide that can help and answer most common problems for new visitors? The odd problems can be kicked up to live help. Just a thought...