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
