Preliminaries:
- Starting in Second Life 1: Creating an Account
- Starting in Second Life 2: Installing the Firestorm Viewer
- Starting in Second Life 3: Firestorm First-Run and Player Welcome
- Starting in Second Life 4: Movement -- Jump Down, Turnaround, Fly Away Home
- Starting in Second Life 5: THROWN OFF THE ISLAND? Getting Back Anywhere. Mostly.
- Starting in Second Life 6: Howdy Stranger! Getting Chatty
It's a little premature to add friends at this point. But it is useful to find out about potential friends.
Using Firestorm, we can do the same thing suggested by the sign, first getting to know about folks nearby.. The Firestorm button is a little different.
There is a stylized symbol of two folks. The tooltip explains more. This is a toggle button for bringing up and tucking away the People dialog. I use this People constantly and you probably will also.
The Nearby tab is the most useful for newcomers:
There is much to glean from this informative tool.
Checking Out the Neighborhood
- The Nearby characters are listed in the order of increasing distance from your avatar. Watch the list for several moments. See how the list rearranges as characters arrive, move about, and leave.
- When the range is in green, that is within the normal "Nearby Chat" range.
- When the range is in bright white, you have to shout for them to hear you.
- Shouting is by starting a text entry with "/shout" or by ending with Ctrl+Enter rather than just Enter
- Whispering is by starting a text entry with "/whisper" or by ending with Shift+Enter rather than just Enter. To see how that matters for distance, try it.
- When a name is in bold white type, that is an avatar for an account that is known to you; this can happen once you have established a friendship between that account and yours.
- The age column signifies the age of the character in days since the account was created.
- The ages given in red are those of newcomer accounts. When the accounts been in-use for enough days (8 or more), the age will no longer be shown in red.
- On Adventure Island, the only long-timers in the vicinity will be characters of staff that provide assistance to newcomers.
Being Nosy
An easy way to learn about your neighbors is to double-click on the Nearby character's name. For example,
Here's how I got a closer look at Aish Atwood the other day. By double-clicking her name, the avatar was brought into view. By mousing onto her head, her identification appears. Avatar name "Aish Atwood" was chosen by the player with account "pineda2k10." Also, Aish has a rôle identified above her name. She is an "Adventure Lead," someone to speak to if you're having difficulty.
Note: This technique won't reveal someone who is in a place where people are not allowed to see them from outside of their location. Also, when an avatar is viewed this way, the view will follow them around until you stop such gentle stalking by clicking the Esc key.
You don't have to follow someone around to learn about them, even though it shows something about their taste in avatar characteristics and choice of outfit. Simply right click on the entry in the Nearby tab of the People tool.
There are many actions that we will learn to take with other characters. The most useful one is "View Profile."
Of general interest are the profile picture, the list of Groups that have been joined -- a source of ideas for you -- and the chosen "About" description.
The other tabs are also useful in learning more about the character. The Picks tab can be very informative.
For Aish, there is just one entry, about a Central Park location. This may have some connection with the "Central Park" sign that can be seen in the distance over Aish's right shoulder. We'll figure that out eventually.
Don't take advantage of any teleport options just yet. Wait until all of "Adventure Island" has been explored.
What About My Profile?
Well, unfortunately, you (and my tyronube) don't have much yet.
Many newbies look alike, and the profiles are useless. One mark of graduation from newbie-ness is making your profile useful. We can work on not having a newbie avatar around the same time.
Wait, Wait, Isn't This About Adding Friends?
You can invite another account to be a friend of yours. Whether they notice the invitation and choose to accept it is a throw of the dice at this point. Likewise, if someone sends you a friend invitation.
For the record, here's two ways it is done. Really, you should talk it over privately first. We'll cover that at the next waypoint on the Adventure Island tour.
One Approach is to right click on an avatar entry under the Nearby People tab and select "Add Friend.".
Another way is to use a viewed profile's 2nd Life tab Add Friend button.
Keep in mind, it is always best to talk it over first. It's time to dig into that at the next waypoint of the tour.
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