On a less personal note, I started a wish list for things I'd like to see as part of an SL viewer or user experience. I'm realizing that most of my wishes are those of a shopper/ heavy inventory user, but all the more reason for me to say them out loud somewhere.
In fact, this points out my biggest complaint about the changes being done in viewers in the name of Noobie User X: that there IS such a thing. In reality, I am finding that Noobie User X is really GamerSam or RelationshipSeekingMary. There are many different kinds of people trying SL for the first or second time, and they are coming to SL with many different kinds of expectations (rightfully, as we all know, SL is whatever we make it).
So in my mind, these viewers should not be "noob based," but rather use-based. If you want to game, you DL a viewer with a built-in combat HUD and a list of current combat Destination places in the LM folder. Combat sims could make Noob packs of materials available (as many do) at their landing site, and designers who make combat gear could add it to the Inventory folder of their group (another need, but I am getting ahead of myself).
Now I don't mind the idea of downloadable patches for a basic viewer. I mean, it was no big deal for me to open the advanced menus in the new viewer, and it's no big deal for me to answer a question in a Builder's Brewery chat about how to do that, once someone is ready to. But it would also help those of us who are already inworld to deal better with these new residents if we could tell that they were coming to us on Viewer GameBoy or Viewer LoveLine or some such.
So my particular needs at this time are all about inventory. If we're thinking out loud about what kinds of things an inventory hound would need, what has already been suggested? Now I must go on a research mission to see if my cousin, Rowan Derryth, writing over at Prim Perfect, has talked about this already, or if anyone else has.
Oh, and Happy New Year, and Happy Birthday to my Wonderful Real-Life Love.
