New resident experience.

[Angr Valeur]

Hi,
My name is Angr and I'm a new resident to Second Life. Today I wanted to and did briefly attend an NCI class, Basic Scripting. The instructor for the class showed up very very late. Only after a substitute started ill-prepared but good intentioned to teach the course, did the instructor show up. Once the course was officially under way I encountered an inability to complete the first task of creating a basic prim. With the avatars around me and counting the instructor the rendering cost wasn't astronimcal, but it was still moderately high for only 3 people besides myself. Lag seemed to be the cause for my problem. I tried 'Ctrl+B', it brought up the Edit Tool, as the instructor instructed but I could not create a prim there. I was able to create a prim in the local sandbox but not in the classroom. The instructor was rather quick, before I tested my ability to create a prim in the sandbox, to hastily tell me that "I don't know what to tell you" while never once pausing to ensure I had the right idea and or no object active. My experience was bad. As such I'd like to offer this feedback to those in charge. I don't think this happens all of the time but as a community for new residents it would benefit Second Life to ensure new residents aren't treated like burdens to the class. It would help in the retention of new residents and students. If a substitute is ever needed, make sure they have the necc tools available to pick up for the instructor who is not able to teach their scheduled course. All in all I feel a little alienated but I'd like to see Second Life get a second wind so this is my attempt at offering feedback that I feel will improve user experience. I'm not trolling or trying to evoke annoyance, it's just feedback.

[Janet Rossini]

I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad experience. I would normally suggest that a new resident start with a basic building class before starting scripting, but it sounds like you had at least rezzed some prims before?

I hope you won't give up because of this one bad situation. NCI people are always willing to help, and usually we're pretty good at it. Also consider joining the NCI Scripters list if you decide to go forward with scripting. The group is quite helpful. As always on a technical forum or list, the group does appreciate it if someone with a question shows that they have "done their homework" by trying to find the information on our scripting wiki. Sometimes, of course, that's not possible, and generally a polite question will get a polite and helpful answer.

Good luck, and enjoy Second Life!

[Angr Valeur]

The aforementioned experience caused a moment of evaluation, ad nauseum. I did what I felt was a constructive thing to do and you responded very nicely. I actually attended a Q & A after that class and asked a ton of questions that were answered to the best of the staffs abilities, which was more than suffecient.

I'd already visited Bromley and covered a little Basic Scripting. I was more or less trying to repeat the lesson from a different perspective. Sure scripting is scripting but teaching isn't just teaching nor learning just learning. I didn't enjoy the NCI scripting class, but such is life Second or otherwise. I do feel that NCI as a whole would like to retain new residents and more than likely do not intentionally alienate students. Lag is the likely culprit for my inability to rez a prim.

I will look into the NCI Scripters list. I have looked at the wiki and do enjoy it. It's how I found the NCI in-world tutorial, which is what I was wanting for the moment; a bit of fantasy immersion while learning. My imagination isn't good enough to make me feel immersed in 1st Life or better yet my daydreams aren't something I multitask well while in a traditional class, technical book, or wiki.

After the Q & A I attended an NCI building competition, that was a lot of fun. Those two NCI experiences really really helped improve this users experience rating.

[PeaceSmythe]

Angr,

I'm the kid that showed up to substitute , if you want to contact me in world I'ld be glad to help you to get started. I had a fear about trying to rez at the Beach myself that day. I was having trouble at NCI South, a much quieter area, for a project that I was working on. Unfortunately. SL problems are like the weather. We have to learn to deal with them because we have little influence over them. I know it sounds trite, and it's an unsatisfying answer, but I know from personal experiance that many of us scripters circulate between sims looking for favorable "weather" ( And unfortunately that's not practical to do for a class ). Just as a note, when I was starting, I got quite a bit out of the tutorials at The College of Music Scripting and Science. I found them more useful than Bromley, but YMMV. I also got a lot out of the Ivory Tower of Prim's tutorials. ( Much of the utility of scripting here is the manipulation of prims. ) Personally, I used these tutorials in conjunction with NCI classes, which provided a practical element, and talking with folks in the sandbox to educate me about LSL. I will note, I've got over three decades of C work, so I wasn't starting entirely from scratch. But seriously, feel free to drop me an IM.

Peace Smythe