OIslanders Test Team

Test Team for OI 92 please keep this page updated
==Take The Survey!==
The Test is Finished! But don't think you're getting away so easy!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=N1Ovsg5l0A2C_2bnXabG9twA_3d_3d
Weigh in on what you believe to be the most influential aspects of your efforts, the OI and the test itself.
SURVEY RESULTS
Thank you very much for participating in the survey. You can see the results here:
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OIslanders_Test_Team/Survey_results
==OIslander Test Team Stats==
[OI92 Stats and Charts]
==Efforts and Observations==
===Diary of Events===
1 June 2007 
*Giving out copies of Multi Language Welcome Notecard --Destiny Niles 08:45, 1 June 2007 (PDT)
*Giving out Babblers, use of Babblers (each Volunteer on station picks up on one language for Babbling and focuses on giving out help on it when necessary, switching only when nobody requires that language. --Patchouli Woollahra 13:24, 1 June 2007 (PDT) 
5 June 07 
*Gwynnie and I spent 4 to 5 hours resetting scripts on OI 92 testing the new Orientation Guide trying to determine why it repeatedly would not work on our island properly. We went to several other islands using fresh copies of the Orientation Guide as comparison benchmarks. Often the same area scripts would not work for us, but just as frequently the same areas worked perfectly on other islands. --Amber Linden
*Greeting new residents as a tiny (white tiger), was well received. The residents were more talkative than to my normal 6.11" male AV.--Destiny Niles 09:16, 5 June 2007 (PDT)
Notes up to and including 6/7/07: I'm still noticing that most of the residents landing at 92, regardless of time of day, are non-US and speak little to no English. I always give out relevant notecards and LMs to their country/language areas when I have them, but it renders the HUD and tutorial areas useless to them bc they're all in English (except for the Chinese option on 2.0.) Having guides in many languages will be the single biggest factor in retention for these folks, which isn't news to any of us, but is still true. Most residents are confused about the HUD, which sometimes fails for no clear reason, and want to TP off of 92 (typical OI experience!) rather than do the tutorials. Again, the language barrier is most likely the cause of this, since anyone who can't go through the tutorials or understand the HUD will get bored to death pretty quickly on an OI! Otherwise, I find that greeting residents, repeatedly offering to answer questions, assisting with HUD issues, pointing out the HI LM sign, and just chatting with residents in a friendly manner seems to move things along. --Gwynnie Boffin
7 June 2007 
*Only a couple of residents where on the island, 2 have been in-world for a couple of days and where still trying to get off the island. One of them had lost her guide so I gave her a new one and she completed and was off in about 10 minutes. Another one said that the guide keep having her start over again from the beginning and the Help Island billboard did not give her a landmark. I gave her one and she was off. One resident was totally none responsive, underwater in the corner of the sim. No new residents landed during my stay.--Destiny Niles 18:59, 7 June 2007 (PDT)
8 June 2007 
*Gave L$25 to 14 new residents --Destiny Niles
*Attended OI92 09.30-10.40pm PDT - only two visitors to the region. Questions on how to become monied remain a popular topic despite extensive writing on the official Website and Knowledge Base regarding the L$. Also: continued stubborness by most newbies to stay on the ground, causing issues with Orientation Guide's way of handling transitions between pavilions... May need to rerig at later date with a zone-based rather than a llSensorVolume based system? Handed out landmarks to several newbie support groups and foreign help islands to both visitors. Spent rest of time delivering OI A/B places of interest LM+pics to Don Misfit as previously requested.--Patchouli Woollahra 22:49, 8 June 2007 (PDT)
*Giving out Babblers, use of Babblers - Seems to have worked reasonably well in terms of teasing out people to communicate in some fashion in differing languages, especially amongst each other.--Patchouli Woollahra 11:35, 8 June 2007 (PDT)
*Showing up in default costume and elven look increased eyeball time compared to showing up as Fennec maid - time spent looking at each other and discussing aspects of Second Life. Side-effect - increased time spent by newbies at the wrong part of me. Blind test with other types of clothing to follow --Patchouli Woollahra 11:35, 8 June 2007 (PDT)
9 June 2007 
*Gave L$25 to 8 new residents --Destiny Niles
*Attended OI92 04-07am PDT, 09/06/2007 - Heavy influx of Spanish speaking residents. attempted to walk through basic steps required of the orientation. OG continues to be ignored/poorly read by newcomers despite repeated requests to check them out. support portal requirements to login prior to using Knowledge Base / Solution Finders continues to hinder attempts to link to commonly asked questions. Couple of clear write-offs during my shift: 1) newbie who believed he knew more than me about Second Life (so why isn't he skipping the OI?) 2) couple of residents insisting on coming in naked or topless despite repeated requests to do otherwise. 3) lack of Spanish materials. (props to Seathal Sawchuk for providing a link to a Windows live group that supports Spanish SLers. ) 4) failures in literacy / refusal to read the Orientation Guide properly. The non-linearity of the Orientation Island experience continues to be a bit of a hindrance to orientation: a lot of people have absolutely no idea where to go and what to do in terms of learning stuff... Generally a disaster as usual on a general scale with occasional successes where newbie brought a learning-hungry and open mind to the process. Too few of them unfortunately. =sigh= --Patchouli Woollahra 07:32, 9 June 2007 (PDT)
11 June 2007
*Gave L$25 to 23 new residents --Destiny Niles
12 June 2007
*Gave L$25 to 66 new residents --Destiny Niles
*Tuesday evening OI92 had over 1000 prims worth of stuck vehicles in the move area. The region crashed during the clean up process. Once the island was back and vehicles fixed I observed new residents arrive and all went smoothly. --Lexie Linden
13 June 2007
*Gave L$25 to 39 new residents --Destiny Niles
*Wednesday early afternoon OI92 had 2 vehicles with one dupe each. --Lexie Linden
18 June 2007 
*ALL CLEAR (no technical issues)--Hermia Linden 11:05, 18 June 2007 (PDT)
Notes from 6/7/07 through 6/18/07: (I'm still having a lot of trouble being able to log into this Wiki reliably, so I apologize for the sporadic entries.) I'm still finding mostly non English speakers on 92. I talk to those who speak Spanish, Italian, and French in their languages, direct them through the tutorials and then give them international LMs when they're ready to go. Still having trouble adequately helping residents from places with languages I don't speak, even with the Babbler, due to the grammatical trouble with any translator, but I try! My tactic with all residents is essentially just to offer help, answer questions as best I can, troubleshoot with residents, and be available to them. :) --- Gwynnie Boffin
18 June 2007
*Monday AM rounds found 15 residents on OI92 all vehicles working normally - Test drove each. Found 1 abandoned vehicle. --- Mia Linden
*Monday PM rounds found 12 residents on OI92 All vehicles working normally - Test drove each. --- Mia Linden
*Monday evening OI92 had 2 extra vehicles on the road that had not disappeared. Stats ok, only one resident on the island.---Lexie Linden
19 June 2007
*Tuesday early morning. No technical problems. Few visitors. The bulk of arrivals were on other islands. A small influx of Italians who fortunately seemed able to help themselves. I was ready to say "Mi dispiace, sono Inglese", then thought they could probably do without my few words gleaned in an (uncompleted) evening class.--Hermia Linden
*Tuesday AM rounds found 2 residents on OI92 - All vehicles test driven by me and working. --- Mia Linden
*Tuesday PM rounds found 5 residents on OI92 - All vehicles test driven by me and working. --- Mia Linden
*Tuesday Evening no residents on OI92 - No Tech issues ---Lexie Linden
*Sidenote: Even though I did not goto OI92 this evening I went to NOAA sim to enjoy some of SL. While there I was approached by random newbies (I had forgotten to change my tag- didn't notice since I have my tag hidden to myself). They where even more confused and asking the same questions that new residents where asking on OI92, "I need help, Help me, what do I do?, Where is the city?, Do you work for them?". I gave them landmarks and the foreign help notecards. It didn't occur to me until after the third one that I was thinking that this sim must be listed as an option for orientation (it's not, but I changed my tag after that:), still got a couple of questions. Destiny Niles
20 June 2007
*Wednesday morning & early afternoon very few residents on OI92 the majority of the time- No Tech issues ---Lexie Linden
*Wednesday PM - Sent group notice to New Residents group about Second Life 4 Birthday this weekend. (Have about 33% acceptance rate on spam group invite. Destiny Niles
 
21 June 2007
*Thursday AM - No residents on OI 92 - Tested vehicles with no trouble - no other issues noted - Mia Linden
*Thursday 12-1 PM - 2 residents on OI 92 - One left shortly after my arrivial before I could see who it was. The seconde one was a resident from France who spoke several languages. He inquired on how to make money. I gave him the multilanuage welcome note, french help notes, babbler and some notecards on how to make money. --Destiny Niles 13:11, 21 June 2007 (PDT)
22 June 2007
*Friday - No new residents. Only a couple residents who were rezzed in the last week. Helped them get off OI. 6PM no residents on island. Destiny Niles
23 June 2007
*Saturday AM - 11 residents on OI 92 - Tested vehicles with no trouble - no other issues noted - Mia Linden
*Saturday PM - 1 resident on OI 92 - Tested vehicles with no trouble - no other issues noted - Mia Linden
*Saturday 9 PM - 2 residents on OI 92 - they did not understand how to leave. Gave instructions on getting a landmark to Help Island and off they went - Destiny Niles
24 June 2007
*Sunday AM - 5 residents on OI 92 - All Vehicles Tested & working - No other issues noted or reported - Mia Linden
*Sunday PM - 4 residents on OI 92 - All Vehicles Tested & working - Destiny Niles pointed out that resident Zenida Zenovka was still on OI 92 even though she had a rezz day of April 2, 2007. I was able to move her to Help Island 6. - Mia Linden
25 June 2007
*Monday AM - 3 residents on OI 92 - All Vehicles Tested & working - No other issues noted or reported - Mia Linden
*Monday PM - 2 residents on OI 92 - All Vehicles Tested & working - No other issues noted or reported - Mia Linden
26 June 2007
*Tuesday AM - 1 resident on OI 92 - All Vehicles Tested & working - No other issues noted or reported - Mia Linden
*Tuesday late afternoon & evening very few residents on OI92 the majority of the time- No Tech issues ---Lexie Linden
27 June 2007
*Wed AM and Afternoon- Very few residents on OI 92 - No issues - Lexie Linden
28 June 2007
*Thursday AM - No residents on OI92 - Vehicles all working properly - Mia Linden
*Thursday PM - 1 resident on OI92 - Vehicles all working properly - Mia Linden
29 June 2007
*Friday AM and Afternoon- No residents on OI 92 - No issues - Lexie Linden
30 June 2007
*Saturday Afternoon - 1 Resident on OI 92 - Did my vehicle tests and all working. - Mia Linden
==Strategies==
===Ideals to try===
#Greet new residents as someone normal, but slightly more built up from prolonged time on grid --Patchouli Woollahra 13:03, 1 June 2007 (PDT)
#Give out 25L seed money to new residents. --Destiny Niles 09:16, 5 June 2007 (PDT)
#Give out redemable linden certificate that can be cashed in in-world on my parcel worth from 25L to 100L and must be redemmed by 6/9/07. --Destiny Niles 09:16, 5 June 2007 (PDT)
#After a couple of days of collecting names spam the new residents with a group invite. --Destiny Niles 09:07, 6 June 2007 (PDT)
#Create a audio/message greeting gesture. This way the residents are given an audio message to hear since many don't notice the chat message at first. --Destiny Niles 10:49, 28 June 2007 (PDT)
===Don Misfit's Humble Opinions===
I do have a few thoughts on retention of newbies that I wanted to put into words... I've communicated a bit of this to some of you already, but this is probably a good place to put it for further discussion.
First, no offense to Destiny's "seed money" idea, but I have a bit of a different philosophy on that. I try to convey to newbies - particularly in response to the "how do I get money" question - that you don't *need* any money to enjoy Second Life. Most activities are completely free, plus they'll find thousands and thousands of freebies all over SL. Clothing, vehicles, houses, gadgets of all kinds... People can spend months here without ever spending a single L$ and still have a great time. Giving the impression that they will need money to buy stuff in order to enjoy SL just seems like "not quite the right approach" ...
Next, the new OI format is a big improvement. Unfortunately, the newbies go from a place with a cool castle, city-block, map-room, etc... to a very drab Help Island, and from there, often to a very drab Welcome Area. The very frequent questions I hear are:
#What's there to do?
#Where's the rest of the "game"?
#Where's "the city"?
In other words, the typical newbie has learned *how* to use the software, but has no idea *why* to use Second Life.
I think, very early on, more emphasis needs to be placed on "What's to Come" – give them something to look forward to... a little motivation for sticking around and figuring this thing out.
I'd like to see – on OI – more information (and visuals) about what all is "out there" in the SL world. Slide shows and/or videos of cool, exciting places and activities, for example. Give them some destinations to pick from, as opposed to the current "just go find something" approach. I realize there may be an issue with directing traffic to specific areas... so the destinations would have to be non-commercial spots – but certainly there should be plenty of suitable locations.
A side note: I know there are a few videos already available on the OIs. However, it took me a few visits before I realized there was more than one video! All of the video screens use the same texture, so there is no indication that they play different clips. Particularly when you take into account the fact that, if you are standing in the pavilion area watching a video, and you look around, you see multiple screens playing the same clip. Really tough to guess that you will see a different video if you walk over and stand closer to one of the other screens.
I'm putting together a simple slide-show attachment (since we can't build on OI 92) that some of us may want to try using. If anyone has any snapshots / images they'd like to contribute (already got a few from Destiny), please send them my way. Cool builds, fun activities, people dancing, etc... (please keep 'em PG :) If you would, make them 512x512 and prefix the name with "AB - " to make it easy for me to know what it's for.
As soon as I have a decent sampling, I'll hand 'em out - assuming anyone else thinks it's a worthwhile idea to try :)
End of my ramblings for now --Don Misfit 22:35, 6 June 2007 (PDT)
When you get the slide-show together send me a copy. Also my ideal about the free lindens is that you are right Don about the freebies (really tens of thousands-my inventory is a testimony to that), but some things do cost a little, upload of snapshots for profiles (my next push is to get the newbies to put something in their profiles), and the 1L items for example. And it is crappy that we can't build on OI. --Destiny Niles 09:05, 7 June 2007 (PDT)
===A Newbie's Point of View on the Newbie Experience.===
I found this post interesting. Destiny Niles
- Yes, definitely some good points made. Thanks for reposting it here Destiny :) Blue Linden
source: http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=193560
Jolene Merlin
Not sure if this is in the right Forum, but if it isn't then I'm sure it'll be moved.
Anyway.
I'm new to SL, a friend showed it to me and I thought it was an exciting and interesting online world to explore, and the most appealing part being that the basic account is free.
So I decided to start up an account.
First things, the initial account setup via the SL Website was easy; downloading the client wasn't a problem. Logging into the world for the first time was very self explanatory.
But after that.
I got completely lost. Upon my arrival on Orientation Island, I had absolutely no idea what to do. I think some instructions showed up on my screen but they were always fuzzy, or "out of focus" if that makes sense. 
No one else on that Island knew what they were doing either, I probably met dozens of new players showing up for the first time, speaking many different languages and none of them knew what they were doing and everyone would ask every one else what to do next. It was all very confusing, I think I know now, how the workers at the Biblical "Tower of Babel" felt, after God struck their tongues and made them all speak different languages so none knew what the other was saying.
So... after wandering around some and getting certain "Out of Focus" prompts on my screen , I was able to figure out that at certain area's, I was supposed to do something. It wasn't easy trying to figure out what that was. In some situations, another English speaking New Player who already figured it out would come along and give advice.
But what about all those who didn't speak English, who didn't know what to do? I saw many of them go offline, likely in frustration, and never come back.
So after a few hours of wandering around this little Island and trying to figure out what to do, I start to wonder how I get to leave it. At that point I was quite frustrated, I had gotten up and left my computer to get something to eat. When I came back, surprise... one of the "Out of Focus" boxes was now "In Focus!" and I could read it. It told me I had a key to leave. Ironic, that I spent all that time wandering around forever, and never knew I had already been granted the ability to leave this Island. I gather, these little instruction windows stay Out of Focus for a certain amount of time to load, but wandering arounf the island so much and clicking on different things would refresh it and bring up another that was also always out of focus.
So to improve the Newbie Experience, in my opinion, things on this Island need to be made more obvious or easier to understand, and that instruction window shouldn't be out of focus all the time, making it impossible to read.
Also, there should be an Experienced Player, there on that Island all the time, to help quide these new players, and be able to answer their questions... which brings me to the next part of my Newbie Experience... 
My arrival upon Help Island. 
I was told, that when I got to this second Island, there would my "Helpers" there to answer my questions and help me. 
That certainly turned out to be wrong. All I saw was more of the same... many, many new players wandering around, all speaking different languages and not knowing what to do.
Well I actually spent a few days on Help Island, logging in for a few hours after work, wandering around then logging off, only to do it again a night or two later. I watched, dozens, upon dozens of new players arrive here and still have absolutely no idea what they're doing, or what they're supposed to do.
Never once, did I ever see an experienced "Helper" show up, on this Help Island.
I did meet a few people during the time I spent there, and some I managed to help with the knowledge that I had learned for myself... Eventually, I decided to leave and go to the rest of the SL world. I had joined up with a couple others who were ready to leave as well.
Unfortunately; once we finally "teleported" away from Help Island and into the "real" world of SL... the game dropped everyone in seperate locations, scattered throughout the world, and none knew how to communicate with each other. None of the tutorials thus far had taught anything about how to manage a "Friends List" of any sorts, nor how to use the ingame IM's, which of course should be self explanatory but for most people just starting out, it apparently is not!
So.
I'm finally there, in SL... and I'm lost. I have no idea what to do, where to go, or anything, and the small party that I had left Help Island with, was scattered throughout the rest of the game world. Fortunately I knew enough from my experiences with playing other MMO's out there, I knew enough to figure out how to manage a Friend List and managed to successfully track several down, and get them to teleport together to a single location, where they could all continue to explore together.
But what about those who enter the world, and don't know how to do this? What about the groups of friends, who enter the world, for the first time, hoping they would be able to all set out together right away, but find that they're suddenly seperated, scattered all over, and lost?
There needs to be one, single location where all newbies automatically go upon leaving this Help Island, instead of scattering them all over. So then friends can stay together and there is no hassle of spending hours trying to track people down. Some of those who teleported off Help Island with me, were frustrated apparently, that they were lost and they arrived with no one they had met, and they went offline, and in the week that I've been on so far, I've never seen them back!
How many of those advertised 7 million accounts, are accounts belonging to a new player who got frustrated with the current "Newbie Experience" and left, and never came back?
Anyway... just my 2 cents, as I said I've only been active for a week and maybe some of these areas of concern are being looked into, I dont know... but I just compelled to share my experiences with starting in SL for the first time.
I'll close with only this... out of all the Online Games\MMO's, etc that I have tried... SecondLife had the most confusing and frustrating Newbie Experience that I've seen yet!