The First 5 Things To Do To Enhance Your Second Life

For new comers, Second Life can be confusing with fairly steep learning curve since unlike any other virtual games, there is no set objective to accomplish beyond the basic tutorial when new avatars landed on the welcome island.

How your Second Life will become depends a lot on your own initiative. Second Life is beyond just a game. It is a social platform on steroid so to speak.

However, there are a few simple things you can do to enhance your experience immediately.

I will attempt to cover what I would consider the top 5 things to do to quickly establish a good foundation before you go all out to explore this massive virtual space.

1. Learn the Basic

If you are reading this your should already have made it out of the Learning Island - the island where you first came into Second Life and was tasked to make your way out of it.

Hopefully you would have follow the arrows and the instructions and learned the basics of how to move and fly your avatar around and pass through the arched door to arrive at Social Island. Once you arrive at Social Island you can no longer return to the Learning Island.

At this point, would be a good idea to explore around the Social Island and chat with others for a while. This is a generally safe area to hang around and talk to some other more experience avatar.

However, do take note that everyone here has a different personality - some nice and some not so. If you happened to encounter someone who is rude or trying to troll you beyond tolerable level, just teleport away or simply right click on their avatar and choose "Block".

Now it is a good time to know exactly where you are in Second Life.

In your viewer's top menu (I am assuming you are using the Official Second Life Viewer) select World then click on World Map. The World Map window will open.

Zoom out using your middle mouse button and you will see yourself as a yellow dot on the map. This would gives you a sense of where you are relative to this massive virtual world.

The World Map is a handy and most effective tool for exploring Second Life other than using the search button (and my favourite tool). Just finding places to explore by looking at the World Map is fun and you can learn a lot more. So do use it often as you go around this massive world. To teleport to other places using the World Map simply click on any area on the map and select the Teleport button in the lower right of the map window.

If you are still not so sure of some of the basic movement and controls, the next best stop is to visit the Orientation Island where you can learn about all the basics again.

2. Personalise Your Avatar With Free Items

Before moving on to explore the world perhaps one of the best thing to do is to personalise your avatar.

The latest Second Life default avatars have greatly improved in terms of their skins and appearance. But there are still tons of things you can do to make your avatar unique. And here are some tips:

a. Edit the shape of your avatar.

To do so right click on your avatar and select Edit My Shape. Your avatar will move into a relax pose and the Appearance window will open. Click on each body section tab and use the sliders to adjust the shape of you avatar. Once done click Save on the top left area of the window.

b. Change your skin

As mentioned, the new SL default avatars have been greatly improved. However, if you want to look really unique you have the options to change your skin by grabbing some free skins available in the Marketplace.

Log into the Marketplace and on the left hand Categories column select either Complete Avatar or Avatar Components / Avatar Skins.

Now to get some free skins, on the left hand column, under Price (just below Categories), enter 0 into the the two price range boxes, scroll down and click Refine Search button. A list of free skins will show up.

Using the Marketplace and the same search filter methods you can also find free hairs, clothings and many other things to enhance your avatar further.

3. Enhance The Movement of Your Avatar Using Free Animation Override Head Up Display (AO HUD)

The default movement of Second Life default avatars are simply horrible and will often than not earn you the label of "Noobs" from more experience players.

The good news is there are free AO HUDs around that can help you at least inject some life into your avatar.

To get them log into Marketplace. On the left hand Categories column select Animations. On the left hand column, under Price (just below Categories), enter 0 into the the two price range boxes, scroll down and click Refine Search button.

If you are too lazy to do that and just want a presentable Animation Override HUD then go either the male or female version:

Female Free AO HUD

Male Free AO HUD

A good AO HUD goes a long way to create the first impression so do consider to invest in a good one at later part of your Second Life journey.

4. Join A Help Group

When you are new and alone in a massive world, things can get pretty confusing, scary and lonely.

Fortunately, there are no lack of help groups within Second Life. Join a help group as soon as possible and start asking questions. Be respectful and patience when you wait for the reply.

Here are two of the most friendly and successful help groups. The links will take you to their in-world location.

Helping Haven

New Citizen Incorporated

Once you are there ask anyone around how you can join their groups.

5. Explore Places Using Destination Guide

The official Second Life viewer comes with the Destination Guide which is one of the best way to start your exploration.

From the top menu, select World then click on Destination and the Destinations window will pop up to show you various different categories of places. I highly recommend you check out the Newcomer friendly categories as general I found those are the best place for newcomers to get more information about Second Life.

Hope this article helps to point your towards the direction for a deeper Second Life experience.

Happy exploring:)