New Welcome Center Beta Feedback Thread

[Moonrise Azalee]

I agree with the 'ambiant' sound rather than music. some simple birds chirping, water etc. It can actually be a distraction for a 'brand new to virtual worlds' to suddenly have a pop up asking if you want to allow the music to play. imo

[Moonrise Azalee]

Okay, so here's my feedback.

Overall very impressed. It is beautiful, it looks high quality and gives a sense of what is possible. The greeter board is great, the starter pack is great.
A note about the starter pack (just my own opinion) One notecard called Getting Started - one called How to use Kitely

*Getting Started (first notecard)
Welcome to Kitely! We hope you have an easy time getting started. Here are some resources that will help you out a bit:
To find kitely Worlds, go to this page (link here) , you can use world names, or descriptive terms to find the sort of place you'd like to visit. Please note that Adult worlds are not visible by default, you will need to go into your account at Kitely.com and change your settings to view adult material. Simply enter the world from the website, or enter the world name into your Map in your viewer and explore.
Kitely worlds stay offline until someone enters them, so if you get an Offline message, it just means the world is starting up for you and you will be able to enter shortly.
Visit Kitely.com to access our vibrant community forums, ever growing marketplace, FAQ and more.
Enclosed are also some landmarks. You find them in your Inventory (In the folder called Kitely Starter Pack) right click on the Landmark of choice and choose Teleport. As soon as the world starts up, you will be taken there.
For more detailed information about moving your avatar around or other technical parts of using Kitely, please read the other enclosed Notecard

How to Use Kitely:
The details that people familiar to virtual worlds can skip over



*Another issue I had was 'find more worlds. Either it should be a portal you walk through at the very first open landing that opens up on the trail, Maybe like the 'visit random worlds' thingy we have now, or a portal that takes you to the big hall with the world pages being put up. OR in that spot, the first landing that the arrows take you to, to have a semi round wall with worlds , changing, similar to the log in page, based on whos in. Really though I think the random teleporter or a portal that takes you straight to that hall being built would be best because it is too far away. (and is probably easiest to do but then who choses whos worlds go there? That could be a future issue)

*Also the Kitely Information gazebo. IF a person does not know how to put their camera angle on, they will miss the top squares. Only the two lower ones are visible in both my viewers. so either just put one big board in it with the squares smaller tiled, or maybe make that a semicircled wall with the tiles all side by side.

* I DO wish we could take the improved Linda Kellie avatars from clutterfly though and make a new set of avatars in the Change your Avatar area because the avis are outdated and a bit unpleasant for anyone coming in from SL or gaming sites etc.

Other than these - more pertinent info on notecard, find more worlds being too far and the Kitely info squares not being easily visible, it is really really great.
It also invites a person to wander around and explore. I really do like it. Even the kitely merchant building at the back.. sure, why not, lets a person have a reason to wander around.
The build is high quality, very pretty and I definitely enjoy it. Very awesome job everyone!

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far! So to summarize the main points that need discussion so far:

*Music - Ilans call.
*Notcards - need breaking down into easier to digest chunks.
* Agree it is a bit of a journey to get to the hall of worlds. But as mentioned, Ilan wanted all the space to be used. We had to fill it with something, might as well be something useful. Priority was given to the avatars and info areas because those are the most immediate needs. Search worlds IS included in the info kiosk. So its not like the world hall is the ONLY way to find worlds.
*Choice of worlds and merchants displayed is again 100% Ilans call.
* We do want to look at default avatars, but as a separate project. It took a lot of work to get the ones we have now.
*Information Gazebo - instructions how to use your cam are given in the starter pack . But fair point.

I know there are arguments to be made about people not reading and not moving around, but we cant cater to the extreme of this. If people are not prepared to walk or read at all, its pretty hard to help them no matter what you do. Likewise, we cant dump everything they need on them at the LZ.

Also as defacto mediator of this conversation I would like to say that although I will put my views across pretty directly, I am not overruling anyone. I am just the designer. All these points will need to be discussed further before arriving at any conclusion.

[Constance Peregrine]

I just went in and noticed many trees not set to phantom...it's a good idea to do so for a healthy simulator-)

looking good!

[Selby Evans]

KWC stage 1.7 First impressions

Substantial improvement.

Keep in mind that we have 2 kinds of arrivals in Kitely:
Experienced users (expats) from SL, Inworldz, or elswhere.
Newbies with no experience in virtual worlds.

Most current arrivals are experienced. I think the new KWC is adequate for them.
It is not adequate for newbies without prep. My opinion is that newcomer attraction and prep can best be done on web at registration site or elsewhere. See
http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/ ... h-for.html
http://www.newmediaarts.org/home/projec ... ll-travel/
http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/ ... based.html

Yes, I know that most arrivals now are expats. But we don't want to be limited to just the people SL has been able to attract and hold.


Dusk setting was on when I arrived -- you may want to fix it at midday

If you leave it cycling, -- things you want people to read/see should be fullbright

Info clusters visible from arrival point-- good (fullbright needed in dark)

Water at center: adjust height so newcomers can walk out if they don't know how to fly

Volunteer board good. The people available online should be easier to identify. For example, you could change colors for helpers not online.

Kitely Starter pack: Good for Expats, useless for newbies who don't know how to open inventory, to open notecards, or to use landmarks. This is the kind of information I think should be given before they arrive, on some kind of web instruction page, probably with advice: "Best leave this page open on your desktop when you first come in. Then you can check it when you wonder about something."

Landmarks in Kitely starter pack good. Error: Kitely welcome center goes to Kitely merchants sandbox. I see 2 LMs that, by name, seem to go to KWC

I have no opinion about music -- SL expats would know how to turn it off or on. I do think the ambient sounds are a useful addition.

[Freda Frostbite]

FTR, I am fine with ambient noise too. It is dead silence I oppose.

Selby is absolutely right that the starter pack is useless to complete neophytes who may have no clue what to do with a notecard or inventory or how to click on or touch something.

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

I just went in and noticed many trees not set to phantom...it's a good idea to do so for a healthy simulator-)

looking good!

Thanks Constance but can you check your observations? The oak trees all have simplified physics cylenders. So while it might appear that they are physical, they are not actually. If your talking about the willow trees you may be right, but again they have fairly simple models. I did check performance with phantom on and off and noticed very little difference. They are rather large and people seem to like climbing on the roots. So I thought reasonably accurate physics was preferable for them.

The Cypress and Birches on the other hand have no physics.

[Brayla Sana]

Overall, I love the look of the welcome center. It looks fantastic. It loads fast. These are GREAT first impressions. No more sculpties!!! The Roman theme is beautiful and classic.

Below are my critiques.

• The whole area needs more Kitely branding, however. The only Kitely branding is on various small signs, etc. The branding needs to be more prominent.
• I would like to see a teleport board similar to the volunteer board where the various areas of the welcome center can be directly teleported to. If you need a script for this, I can provide one.
• The back of the volunteer board has a texture on it that is a bit awfully stretched. I would fix that.
• The starter pack is great, but the instructions on using inventory and notecards are in a notecard in inventory. That's a problem.

Tutorial Idea:

My suggestion is to have the first sign facing new logins to say, "New to Virtual Worlds? Click Here!" and the user can be teleported to a tutorial skybox where they can learn the basics. Since the tutorial area would be in a skybox, you could release the Welcome Center and then we could develop the tutorial area and add it when it is ready.

Music/Ambient:

This would require a Shoutcast server (or similar) unless you want the same thing playing all the time. I don't think Kitely wants the additional expense of BMI/ASCAP licenses, so creative commons music would be preferred. You can find creative commons music here. http://freemusicarchive.org/ You could probably find something there in the ambient or chillout genres that would please most people.

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Selby - I agree that the total newcomer stuff needs to be addressed, but inworld at the KWC is not the place to do it. We tried to make everything as visible and easy to click as possible. Help with controls is given in the starter pack. If people cant even click things when they arrive inworld I really dont know what can be done.

The new user thing is a real chicken and egg problem. Someone arrives in-world, so we offer them a box of stuff with help, but people dont know how to click or use inventory, so we make a kiosk, but they dont know how to walk. So we build the kiosk around them at the point of landing, but they dont know how to cam, so cant see it all. Realistically, what can you really do? At some point the new user needs to show at least some initiative. No matter how much you baby-step someone, there will always be someone who needs it in smaller, easier baby steps.

On Windlight - This is tricky, presently it is set to mid-day, which you will see if you set your WL to "estate time". Normally, you are prompted to change your WL when you arrive in a new region, but I know this is not always the case when teleporting from elsewhere. But that is an Opensim bug.

For the water - I can put an invisiprim in place so people cant fall in. Good idea.

Music - Ambient sound is not a problem for sure. This was already recently discussed and will be implemented this week unless people really want to press for actual music.

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Brayla - like the idea of a TP board. Will look into that and discuss with Ilan. That would help with the issue of "Too long; didnt walk".

I dont like the idea of too mcuh extra branding. If you made it to the KWC you should know what grid you are on. Right now I think its tasteful. One of the first things you see when landing is the starter pack box with the logo. Its there but not in your face. There will be more branding in the Merchant and Worlds areas I think, but not too much. If there was extra branding, where would you propose putting it?

I like the idea of an orientation space separate to the main KWC. But I will be taking a back seat on that project if it happens. Two big projects in a row is enough for me for now. But I do encourage the community to come together and do it. I will of course support the effort.

I agree that the present setup is not 100% optimal for total newbies, but as I mentioned above I dont think we will ever find a solution that is 100% moron-proof. There is always a hurdle the user needs to figure out for themselves.

As it stands if you open the starter box, a window pops up asking you to add to inventory, if you do this, your inventory opens automatically and takes you to the folder. That is about as simple as you can make it.

By the way, THANK YOU to everyone praising the way the new KWC looks. I am not ignoring you, just trying to stay on-point.