SHOPPING IN THE VIRUTAL WORLD OF SECOND LIFE

SHOPPING IN THE VITURAL WORLD OF SECOND LIFE

Rob Santana

One of the most fun relaxing things for some avatars in second life is to GO SHOPPING in the virtual world of Second Life !! Waking up on a rainy Saturday morning going to your pc in your pj’s with a nice cup of coffee and logging into Second Life for some shop therapy is a regular thing for some! Sure you can shop on Marketplace however, you can’t try on the demo, and you won’t know for sure how it will look or fit. Trying on the demo is one of the many good reasons to do your shopping “in world.” and a lesson you might take to real life as well. Trying on the clothes you buy makes all the difference.

Avatars are constantly recreating their look, fashion, or surroundings. There is always something new to find in Second Life in world stores, after all Second Life is about creating a life you dream about and want to experience.

Just a quick tip before you set out shopping in the virtual world you may need to adjust your graphics settings so things will rezz quickly when you go from place to place. If you are using the Second Life Official Viewer or Firestorm open preferences, graphics tab, set your graphics to MID and your draw distance to 128m. If you want to see how the area you are in is performing hit CONTROL+SHIFT+1 to open the statistics bar. Anytime your FPS (FRAMES PER SECOND) is 10 or lower you’ll want to reduce your graphics settings so you can move about freely without getting dragged down by the lag on the sim. Also using the statistics window is a good way to check if the changes to your graphics settings improved your FPS (Frames per Second). Some avatars shop by standing outside the store and using their camera to scan the entire store without ever going in. This is another effective way of handling things if you are experiencing lag making it difficult to walk around. Hopefully this doesn’t happen very often but if it does adjust your graphics settings. Whenever you tp to a new location have a bit of patience to allow everything to load in your viewer so you can see what everyone else see’s. Experiment a bit to see what helps improve the speed you can move around and view things, detaching huds you don’t need and not wearing too many accessories also helps.

How to reduce lag by adjusting your viewer settings:

So where to shop?

You can learn alot about Second Life Creators and Stores from attending events, So I’m going to explain how to find them and get the most of it it.

Weekly Shopping Events

Where to begin you might ask? Well one in world resident has done a pretty amazing job at putting together a website where you can see exactly what’s on sale and where. The website is:

www.seraphimSL.com

This is a very comprehensive website and truly a great starting point to begin to explore in world stores. Thee amazing sales that happen throughout the week. are all listed here. Regularly visiting this website can save you tons of time and searching so take my word for it and try it at least once. If you truly enjoy shopping I promise you will use it again to help you navigate where you want to go. Every item features the teleport location of the item on sale. At Christmas time some creators publish advent calendars and you can find them all listed on the Seraphim website in December. Seraphim also publishes sponsored Hunts where you can visit places to find hidden gifts which can be alot of fun.

Seraphim also created an inworld store called “THE OUTLET” that features some of the best creators in second life with 50% off everything, Taking a walk through there you might find something you want or discover a creator you want to visit. You can find the landmark to this discount store either on the website or by searching for seraphim in SL Search. Some very good creators have put some express mini stores around that sim which you can also visit.

that features some of the best creators in second life with 50% off everything, Taking a walk through there you might find something you want or discover a creator you want to visit. You can find the landmark to this discount store either on the website or by searching for seraphim in SL Search. Some very good creators have put some express mini stores around that sim which you can also visit.

One creator that offers really great deals for the “The Saturday Sale” is Scarlett Creative sale. The discount is usually 500 lindens or more so its a good idea to stop in and check to see if it’s a house you like. Scarlett Creative has been doing this for a very long time now and it’s nice to see some of the most popular creators contributing to the discount sales. It’s always worth dropping in to see what might be offered that week. Some residents of Second life regularly change and decorate their home so this might be something you find you enjoy doing.

Scarlett Creative. You can usually buy one of her houses for just sixty lindens when it’s featured on this sale. The discount is usually 500 lindens or more so its a good idea to stop in and check to see if it’s a house you like. Scarlett Creative has been doing this for a very long time now and it’s nice to see some of the most popular creators contributing to the discount sales. It’s always worth dropping in to see what might be offered that week. Some residents of Second life regularly change and decorate their home so this might be something you find you enjoy doing.

Shopping for Men in second life can be really tough if you don’t know the creators that are popular. A good starting point is to visit the monthly events for Men. Just use search to find “The Mens Dept”, or “The Man Cave Event” and from there you can start to visit the stores featured in these events. This will keep you engaged with the latest trends and best creators on the grid.

Yearly Events:

Lastly I’m going to talk a bit about the Yearly events. These are usually a big deal for the creators to put out all their newest creations.

The Hair Event, or Skin show is a significant time to go out to update your avatar look. These shopping events can be difficult to get into or even walk in because of the popularity.. Some people do their shopping at these events with an invisible avatar, or even subscribe to receive the demo’s automatically to try at home first. The yearly Hair Fair has a group called “HAIR FAIR DEMO GROUP” To give this a try, join the group to receive all the demo’s which will be sent out on JUNE 24, so for 2022 Be sure to get into this group before this date to be ready., and set your viewer preferences to automatically accept new inventory items by going to PREFERENCES, PRIVACY, GENERAL TAB, then check this off.

There are many ways to find out about places to shop that I haven’t mentioned here so talk to people, visit landmarks and continue to read BOSL magazine to find out about some of the best things going on in Second life in 2022. Cheers !!