Second-Life and Getting Acclamated

I've been toiling around Second-Life for the last three weeks (although I've visited SL several times over the last year on whims), and I'm very disoriented. It's not hard to get around. I walk, fly, or teleport to new places. If I need help, there are friendly people who will give me a hand (and I've had encounters with some people who wanted to get too friendly...). I don't think the graphics are great, but they're not bad either. But, I'm still feeling out of sorts, and I think I know why: my other experiences with MMRPGs'.

The biggest MMRPG I played was Star Wars Galaxies, and as far as MMRPGs go, it had a relatively high learning curve (this was before it was dumbed down after the new combat system was introduced and apparently, it was dumbed down even more with fewer character classes, but I digress). However, there were several control differences with SWG: the mouse had more character control than in SL. In SL, you have a mouse cursor and your character kinda follows it. In SWG, the mouse could really whip you point of view around. Oh, and flying wasn't much of an option either (I need to remap the flying keys in SL so that they make more sense).

The control scheme of SL is minor compared to its lack of spatial and experiential organization. True, SL's chaos can be a good thing because it's entirely user driven. There are some truly unique and far out environments in SL. In SWG, on the other hand, the worlds made sense in terms of city and planet layout (SWG had mutliple planets: Tatooine, FTW!). Cities were organized in such a way so that you could follow visual way points to a destination (from signs to roads to a really good HUD map system). Granted, SWG made sense to those who were fans of Star Wars, too. In SL, you're lucky if a square kilometer or even little plot of land has some sort of visual or organizational continuity (there are some, but not many). Plus, in SWG, your experience had some organization to it: were you an Alliance or Imperial supporter? What class was your character? How do you level up your character? This is missing from SL for good reason: it's the ultimate digital sandbox. I find it disorienting, but give me time, and I'll figure it out.