Best Camping, best freebies, and best stores on TSL. July 18, 2008

I haven’t blogged for a while, and I apologize for that. To try and make up for it, I have decided to put together a list of places in Teen Second Life that may be of interest to other teen residents. Every similar list I’ve seen is always for Adult Second Life, which has annoyed me to no end seeing all of these awesome places but being unable to visit.

Without further ado, I present my list:

Best Camping Spot:

By far, the best camping spot in Teen Second Life that I’ve discovered is at club Eutopia. Although they just decreased their reward from 12 L$/Half hour to 10 L$ to eventually 8 L$, the rate is still better than any else I’ve found. Some of their chairs only give you 5 L$ for 20 minutes, so make sure you know the time/reward for the chair you’re sitting in. While the “regulars” can be anywhere from mildly annoying to all-out obnoxious, I find that if you ignore them, it’s a very rewarding place to camp; you CAN find mature people here, and I’ve made a good friend or two by camping at Eutopia. Not to mention that 16 L$ every hour adds up quickly.

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dugley/74/61/26

 

Unfortunately, I haven’t had much luck with finding camping places on the Teen Grid, so if you know of a good place that awards campers, be sure to let me know in a comment and I’ll update this post!

Best Freebies:

On the first few days I was able to play Second Life, I became absolutely bombarded with freebies. They took over my inventory, hundreds of unopened boxes and folders. Most of it was probably stuff I didn’t need, *cough*stilldon’tneed*cough*, but if you’re broke like the rest of us on TSL, you’ll probably appreciate a few good places to get your fix of freebies too.

The Nix Bazaar-

With two floors of freebies, it’s hard not to find something here that will get you started in Second Life here. Shoes, skins, avatars, plushies, textures, hair, tutorials, landmarks…it’s all here. Especially cool is the display for Torley Linden’s thousands of free textures. Great if you’re like me and want to build things, or even if you just like pretty things. ^_^

Slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nix/139/20/43

Basics Store-

When I first stumbled out of tutorial island, confused, disoriented, and ugly, I had no idea what to do. I saw a sign for this store, and I made my initial “freebie run” here. Set up more like a store than The Nix Bazaar, Basics has many of the same freebies, but definitely worth the visit.

Slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Oasis/51/129/16

The third floor of Nu Noob-

While the first two floors sell items of varying quality, the third floor is ALL freebies. I remember this being more geared towards female shirts and outfits, but for you ladies it’s worth the visit.

Slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dugley/69/109/41

Best Stores:

Sure, freebies are nice, but lets face it. Wearing freebies means you’re probably going to look like everybody else, and you’re at the mercy of the kindness of others to make your avatar look unique. I’ve found both cheap-and-cute and expensive-and-beautiful stores to help give you a direction of where to bring your L$.

Surfs Up! and Beau Monde Espianade-

I believe these two stores are ran by the same person/people, as the style, quality, and price are similar. Very beautiful, quality items, but you definitely pay for it: these two stores are NOT cheap. However, the Beau Monde Espianade has some gorgeous hairstyles on discount, letting you get MANY shades for the low price of 25 L$! If you want to look your very best, I cannot recommend these stores enough. Zaikea Mager, my avatar, wears her shirt and hair bought in these stores.

Slurl: Surfs Up: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Bay%20City%20-%20Edgartown/223/84/25

Beau Monde Espianade: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dugley/80/184/27

 

Hula Hut-

Such a cute store for the ladies! Most of the items are shirts priced at 20 L$ each, but this store is full of very nice quality, cute items, all for low prices, great for us on TSL who must get our Linden Dollars by camping.

Slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lancashire/247/209/25

This is all I have for now. I may update this list in the future, or even make another post. Be sure to comment if you have any places that I’ve missed!

A night at the Club July 7, 2008

Yesterday I treated myself to a steeply discounted pack of hair, containing several shades of blonde. I was very happy with my purchase, especially for only 25 L$ for such quality! For the rest of the night, I was camping. And boy, did THAT prove interesting.

My friend Tianna and I were minding our own business when this guy came over and started calling us sluts. I shied away from saying anything in protest, but I felt Tianna handled it pretty well, despite her experiencing horrible lag.

Sometime during the night I had noticed that my avatar was staring at Tianna’s, and we decided that our avatars were in love. Then behind us, someone whose name was Cum Sorbet came into the club. Tianna found that hilarious, and told me that it had to go into my blog. So it did.

Although the picture at the right doesn’t show Cum Sorbet, it shows my avatar Zaikea Mager, the guy in the center is the guy who called us sluts, and on the right is my friend Tianna Finesmith. Don’t we look awesome for people who can’t buy L$? I still can’t decide whether I like my avatar’s face or not. T_T

After a while, Tianna decided to go on voice chat. Now my mic has been broken for what seems like a million years, so it was me typing while listening to her.Very hilarious stuff ensued, including discussions about Lady Bugs and a million bands and songs I’ve never heard of. But hey, when you need to sit still for half-hours at a time, you don’t mind the amusement.

After earning 60 L$, I decided to explore the region a bit, but I lagged out thrice and couldn’t log back in, so I decided to call it a night and go to bed.

The thing about Teen Second Life is that it’s never boring, or at least not enough that you have time to get bored. Somewhere amongst trying to get the seemingly endless onslaught of male avatars failing to understand you have a boyfriend in RL and camping for endless hours desperate for L$ you are having a great time in a virtual world.

That’s all for today (well, technically yesterday). If anyone reads this, feel free to comment even if you have no idea what it is you just read. ^_^

~Zaikea

Anti-AFK chairs: Harder to stay in than it sounds! July 6, 2008

I went in-world yesterday, bored and looking to do something. Somehow I made my way to club Eutopia. I was standing outside the club, unsure of how the crowd would be. Hearing my fears, my friend Tianna came to the club with me, and after a bit of difficulty I learned how cool it was to dance in 3D when you can’t dance in real life!

So that’s when the money chairs caught my attention. “12 L$ per 30 minutes!”, they cried. I thought of how much more money that would be, and then I learned they were anti-AFK chairs. Which in theory sounded pretty good, and eventually Tianna and I sat down.

Bored in TSL, I read in real life. A bit later I looked up to see that my avatar was standing on the bar I had been sitting in front of. Discouraged, I decided to head back to the Pinkwater Mall, where at least I could earn some L$.

Besides my avatar deciding she didn’t want to stay seated, I realized that checking other screens on my computer is all but a necessity for me. Checking real-world IMs, reading on the web, playing music…even when I’m really playing TSL, I still minimize the screen quite a bit. Ah well, at least I gave virtual clubbing a try, right?

~Zaikea

More about Teen Second Life July 5, 2008

So I failed to mention yesterday that I’m not on Second Life, but Teen Second Life (also known as TSL or “the teen grid”.) It’s similar but not the same, from what I’ve read and heard amongst the others I’ve met playing as Zaikea Mager.

Now that it’s not one in the morning, I’ll talk about my great experience so far in more detail. It might help to know that I made my account back in April, although I didn’t really start playing until this past Tuesday. The reason being that I probably went through making about three accounts before I was able to get one that let me finish registering, so I was a bit frazzled by that. Then once I loaded the client to get on Tutorial island, different things sort of just hit me the wrong way (the way the character movement works, the walking animations, the lag between loading outfits) until I said “Forget it.”

It wasn’t until I was uninstalling the half or dozen MMORPG’s off my computer, Second Life included, that I really thought, “Hey, people say this is cool…why don’t I give it another try?” I re-downloaded the Second Life client, after realizing that TSL doesn’t have it’s own client, and started it up, pretty much going through Tutorial Island all over again because I had forgotten everything I’d learned by that point.

Upon entering the main land, I was a little lost but ended up following signs advertising free stuff. Like most other teens on TSL, I don’t have the means to buy Linden Dollars (L$), the currency of Second Life, so of course FREE is perfect. I took a copy of every freebie I could (I’m a pack rat at heart), and was very excited by the quantity and quality of the items people gave away for free.

It was during one of my “freebie runs” that I encountered the first person who spoke to me. He said hello, I said hi, and he told me he had been working on this plasma rifle all day and asked if I could try it out. To be polite, I said sure, still not quite knowing how to put on items but I figured it out. The “plasma rifle” turned out to be a sort of mini-blimp, flying up through the Second Life sky at a speed that scared me in my first life. Not knowing what else to do, I took off the item, was amused by my character’s falling animation, and thankfully landed in the spot where I started. All the other guy said was “lol”, but I took it in stride that it was pretty funny. He added me as a friend, but we haven’t spoken since.

My next encounter was when I was flying around and teleporting to random places looking for a place to rez all the stuff I’d found. I found myself at a quiet spot with no one around, and began happily opening my boxes of freebies.

A male black-fox furry came in a bit. He asked if I was playing with freebies. Realizing that it must be a mark of a newb, I said yes. He started on about how Freebies were evil, and I apologized saying I couldn’t buy things anyway. He gave me around $229 L$, told me to buy some clothes because people would be able to tell I was new without looking at my profile, and then scampered off.

I was surprised at the generosity thrown in considering how the conversation began. I did a search for “mall” and went to the first one I could find, buying a very cool hairstyle (although unfortunately it ended up being a platinum blonde versus the dark blonde I wanted), and also bought myself a shirt and eventually skin.

After this I realized how much I needed to organize my inventory. Folders and folders of stuff were haphazardly cluttering my inventory, not organized in the least, most of my freebies still in boxes. I went to a sandbox region to rez and organize, meeting two more friends in the process. The first was a Welcomer, he told me. Very friendly guy. Another, who didn’t say he was a Welcomer but I suspected he was, even showed me the basics of building. I built an ice cream cone!

Yesterday though was my best day. Not only was I introduced to camping, sitting around earning 2 L$ every 15 minutes, but I made several friends with the campers. And it all started when I was asked about my hair, and made my first female friend. Not that I have anything against guys, mind you, I was just beginning to feel like the only female. Tianna (I believe that’s how it’s spelt) and I had really good conversations, and I was definitely grateful for having a friend I could really talk to. I stayed camping with her until well into 1 AM in real life, making many other friends in the process.

So yeah,  I’ve had an AWESOME experience on the teen grid. I’m making tons of friends, which is what I came on to do, and it’s so awesome because in real life I’m so shy and only have a few friends, really.

I’m looking forward to learning more about the TSL world, and I hope to learn scripting or at least how to build. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be a millionaire like Anshe Chung. ^_^;

~Zaikea

Four days in Second Life. July 5, 2008

What a great experience it has been!

From day one, people have been nothing but nice to me overall.

I’ve recieved Linden Dollars from people who I just met, have gotten gifts, and have experienced such a friendly atmosphere that I didn’t think was possible.

People not only go out of their way to welcome you, but they usually stay and chat for a while and offer to teach you things, too. A user I met today showed me the beginnings of how to build, even though I even said I had to leave in two minutes! He showed me how to make an ice cream cone.

I made a friend when I walked into a mall today. She IMed me out of the blue, and I ended up having long conversations with her while camping for my first time. Although camping only earns 2 L$ every 15 minutes, it goes very quickly with good conversation. :3

I’ve made a number of friends, which I usually struggle with in real life. It’s been an awesome time that I’ll have to talk about later, since I’m very tired right now. ^_^;

~Zaikea