Over the last couple of weeks, a larger number of our readers than usual have decided to give Second Life a try (in some cases, a second try after some years). It seems appropriate therefore to lay out some essential tidbits to help you get to grips with your first few hours in Second Life.

From quick graphical tune-ups to how to get help, we've got the stuff you need to know first.

I'm still not exactly sure what I've done. I remember pressing a few buttons on the Darkfall website, a really long download, and then a very large splash screen appearing on my desktop with the Darkfall logo emblazoned across it.

I think I downloaded and installed Darkfall. The North American version, in fact. I thought it was just going to be a one night stand between the two of us, but I guess I was wrong. Looks like I'm back in with the game and I'm going in-depth. This time around though, I'm going to do some things differently. There's going to be no reviewing and less critiquing. It's just going to be a straight up re-telling of my experience in the "PvP experience of a lifetime" with a little snark added in, of course. You guys be the judges of Darkfall this time.

This week's events include jumping in with a brand new clan, getting the newbie experience all over again, and the capturing of a city. Exciting stuff, right? Come with me, I'll tell ya all about it.

Tip #1 -- Take the time to learn the UI

The tutorial, while not the best thing in the world, isn't a bad introduction to learning how to navigate the user interface. It shows you the ropes (dryly) and lets you get in some practice before you're dumped onto the main grid. Take your time through it, listen to what it has to say, and then jump on into the world.

For gamers, here's a couple of protips. Right click opens a radial menu, and holding it down does nothing. If you're looking to spin the camera, remember to use alt + click and hold. However, also remember that alt + click centers your camera on whatever you clicked on. If you want to orbit your avatar, alt + click and hold on your avatar, then move the mouse left and right to orbit and forward and back to zoom.

Resetting your camera is the escape key. That's very handy.

Clicking activates many, many things. Try clicking on objects, as you never know what might occur.

If moving is too slow for you, try flying. Hold down E to start flying, then use E to go up and C to go down. Beware that you can't fly everywhere though... look at the top bar to see if flying is amongst the "banned symbols." It looks like a little man flying.

Tip #2 -- Search is your friend

If Second Life is the internet, then the search button is your Google. This little fellow is super handy for finding stuff that you want. Interested in finding a Star Wars group? Just type Star Wars into the group search box after you press the search button, and you're on your way to finding Star Wars fans like yourself. Do you want to buy a lightsaber? Open the "places" tab and type in lightsaber -- you're sure to find a few hits.

You always know where to go when you master the search tool.

Tip #3 -- Be social!

You see the people over there? Talk to them! You like someone's avatar? Tell them! You looking for a specific sim? Ask questions!

One of the most important assets you can have is to speak with the others around you. Find out new things, make new friends, and actually experience SL rather than just watching it on your monitor. If you want a good place to check out that's reliably filled with people, I recommend the city of Nova Albion. If you're new and you want more help with Second Life, then I recommend checking out all of the help options at New Citizens Incorporated.

Tip #4 -- Know what you want

Lastly, set a goal for yourself in Second Life. Don't just go in to wander, go in and search for something you like. Does roleplaying interest you? Search for some roleplaying sims. Games? You'll find a wide variety of independently created games in Second Life. There's even an MMORPG inside of SL! Clubs? Yeah... there's way too many clubs to really count in SL.

If you follow these few tips, your time in Second Life will probably benefit greatly. Of course, if the system isn't your thing, then it isn't your thing. You can't enjoy what you don't enjoy. But if you were always on the fence with Second Life, perhaps now you can give it a "second look" (see what I did there?) with confidence.

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Colin Seraphina Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who thinks all games should be given a fighting chance. When she's not writing here for Massively, she's rambling on her personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message her, send her an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow her on Twitter through Massively, or through her personal feed, @sera_brennan.

Agent missions are one of EVE Online's most popular pastimes. While EVE is most often lauded for its open-ended gameplay, player-determined markets and PvP action, a significant portion of the game's players use missions as their primary income source. There is something comforting about missions that seems to draw players in. For many, running missions and upgrading their ship with the ISK becomes the focus of their achievements and their primary measure of progress. The ability of mission-running to provide a direct translation of effort into a stable ISK income offers us a reassuringly linear work-to-reward scheme in a relatively risk-free environment. Missions and exploration are EVE's primary PvE experiences and new missions are released with each major expansion to help keep the game fresh for casual players. There are even several epic mission arcs planned for the future, long sequences of storyboarded missions much like the quest chains you might find in other MMOs.

In this multi-part guide, I will thoroughly examine the profession of mission-running, from the basics to ship fittings and finally some tips and tricks for maximising your performance. In this first part of the guide, I look at the basics of mission-running from mission types and rewards to agent standings and how to find the best agent for you.

Developer Tasos Flambouras of the Darkfall team stopped by the official Darkfall forums again with a lengthy update concerning pretty much everything under the sun for Darkfall -- from cheating to future updates -- all in one large swoop.

One of the big notes of the post is the acknowledgement of a North American server coming down the pipes, but coming with restrictions to character transfers. Original plans detailed that characters from the European server could transfer off onto the American server (as North American players are certainly playing the European version right now) but this transfer will now be delayed by several months. So, if you're itching to get off of EU-1, looks like you might be waiting for a while unless you wish to create a new character on NA-1.

Past the new server, Tasos has outlined some of the priorities for the Darkfall team, including an enhanced newbie experience, improvements to the economy, upcoming improvements to the solo and group experience, and improvements to the game's PvE system to name a few. While exact details haven't been given, it's nice to know that things like this are on the developer's "to do" list for future updates.

The full post containing all of the juicy details can be read over at the official Darkfall forums.

[Via Hardcore Casual]

Square-Enix has informed Final Fantasy XI players that the next big content patch will be delivered in April, and players have much to look forward to. The Fields of Valor and Moblin Maze Mongers systems will be expanding, due to their warm reception at the hands of FFXI players.

Fields of Valor is the new questing system placed in the game that allows players to be rewarded with handsome amounts of experience and gil for taking down monsters in certain areas of the world in addition to the standard exp and rewards that the monster already gives, much like a World of Warcraft "kill quest." The difference is in completing these quests the player will receive a new type of currency, tabs, that give access to temporary buffs and home nation teleports at any Field Manual placed in the game.

Moblin Maze Mongers is FFXI's "create a dungeon" system, allowing players to form their own dungeons and run through them for experience, money, and special items that can only be obtained from these "do-it-yourself" dungeons.

The full details will be announced soon, but we'll keep our ear to the ground for you to bring you all of the juicy details.

Since I began writing the EVE Evolved column, I've always prided myself on making the articles I write as accessible as possible to new EVE Online players and even people who don't play the game. From my first guide on EVE's skill system to my most recent guide series on the art of tanking, I like to think people of all levels of familiarity with EVE can get something out of them.

In the past few months, the column has been aimed at informing new and prospective players about the varied world of New Eden and giving them the helping hand they deserve in getting started. In this handy wrap-up (or should I say warp-up?) article, I've collected all of the articles aimed at new and prospective players into a set of handy clickable image links.

Linden Lab recently attempted to evaluate the efficacy of its user-volunteer corps as a part of the new user experience (NUE) in Second Life. Two NUE areas were selected (Hanja and Korea), and baseline results established. Then testing was conducted in two phases using one area as a testing ground and the other as a control. The first incorporated themed tours by volunteer greeters, and the second involved general mentoring in conjunction with the original style of Orientation Island tutorials.

Phase one seemed to draw some very successful results, while phase two only showed a slight improvement. The phase two results look to be well within the margins of error, and essentially statistically insignificant. The sort of mentoring you might find at Help Island Public would, based on these results, seem to be broadly ineffective.

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	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

One thousand. That's how many bug fixes are in Vanguard's sixth game update, which has now gone live. In addition to the fixes, there's a new newbie area for levels one through ten called the Isle of Dawn. Word is that it will eventually serve as a free trial setting. For now, though, it's just an easy place to get a new character started.

SOE also redid character models, offering new customization options and making some changes that lower the models' system performance hit. You can keep your old look if you want, though.

The most controversial changes are a whole slew of class damage adjustments. SOE looked at every single class in the game and adjusted its damage output to ensure "that each lands in their correct place in the spectrum of classes." The details of all those changes are buried in the patch notes. Did you get nerfed or buffed? Read up to find out.

If you're a World of Warcraft player looking for something completely different, head over to CrazyKinux's blog and read what he has to say to WoW players looking to make the move to the alien beast that is EVE Online. It reads a bit like one of those articles designed to ease PC users into a transition to Apple's Mac computers.

EVE blogger, Drone Bay podcast co-host, and former Massively contributor CrazyKinux covers many of the bases, noting many of the strongest differences (skill-based instead of level-based character advancement, everyone is on one server instead of scattered between hundreds of small servers, etcetera). He also links to several articles written by him and others that are helpful to newbies.

It's a fantastic post -- a perfect starting point for anyone considering the switch, or even for folks just curious about what EVE is all about. CrazyKinux ends on a pretty funny quote, too: "EVE is like a sandbox with land mines. Deal with it." But don't let that scare you. Really. We named it our #1 Sci-Fi MMO a while back; admittedly that's not saying much, but it ought to count for something, right?

Our sister site Joystiq sent an MMO newbie to wade through the crowds surrounding the PAX08 booths of two upcoming MMOs. One of those titles was Warhammer Online and the other was Aion. The goal was to spend some time with each game, talk to the developers and see which title appealed more to an uninitiated MMO player. The results? Well, take a look for yourself.

It's hard to spend a short amount of time with any game and draw a conclusion of some sort, especially an MMO. Even still, Initial impressions are just as important as long-term ones. Each of the two games chosen definitely give off an immediately different vibe. Most eastern MMOs from NCsoft tend to focus on the established crowd more than new players and Aion isn't an exception. Wheras Warhammer Online is doing more to appeal to a group of players who's first MMO was, well, World of Warcraft. So, as a newbie to the genre it's not hard to see where one might go.

Here at Ask Massively, we've sought to inform and educate the masses on the esoterica of MMORPGs, but today we are going to go back to basics. We're going to give you some advice, or, if you consider yourself a Veteran of the Psychic Wars on the Internet, some reminders about how to act like something other than a complete and total... well, I'm not sure I can use that word without incurring the wrath of my editors.

Our question, this week, is from someone who has had enough.

If you check the Library folder of your inventory, and look in Clothing, you'll see that Linden Lab appears to have selected the new Second Life newbie avatars from the set that Torley Linden was running the survey for earlier this week. We are not totally sure that these avatars are on offer to newbies today, but if they aren't, then it is probably only a matter of days before they become available to new signups at the selection screen.

The new avatars are from Nylon Pinkney, Adam n Eve, Renegade Clothing, Wraith Unsung and Grendel's Children. We recall that there were a number of fantasy/role-play themed avatars in the mix, but apparently none of those made the final cut. You can be a dragon, but not a dragon-slayer.

Pictured above are five of the new avatars. From left to right, they are: Gamer Female, Professional Female, Clubgoer Female (although at only five-feet two, she's easily mistaken for a minor. The underside of the prim-skirt on this avatar is messed up as well), Boy Next Door (as long as the boy next door to you is six foot, five inches -- he could be!), and Cardboard Boxbot. Older residents can access these avatars by dragging the folder onto themselves from the library which will generate a copy in your personal inventory.

[Thanks to sharp-eyed Sean Heying]

Most of us have spent a lot of time playing our favorite games. Chances are good that unless you're totally new to the MMOG world, you've got at least one character at some ridiculously high level, armed to the teeth, sitting on a big pile of gold amongst the trophies of your slaughtered foes. You might even be part of a guild and still play that character with your guildmates on a regular basis to go topple foes of ever-increasing power. It's good to be a dragon-slaying, world-destroying, gold-hoarding demigod of awesomeness.

That's why it's so tough to start over, sometimes. Whether it's rolling up an alt on your current game or picking up an entirely new game, it can be really frustrating to go from a bloodthirsty, battle-hardened warrior who wades into combat swinging an enormous, glowing two-handed sword to some level 1 nobody with a leather jerkin and a knife. All of your accomplishments on your old character seem pretty far away when level 3 wolves are having you for a light afternoon snack, and a brand new grind stretches out interminably before you. Is it any wonder why plenty of players don't even bother with having alts and stick to the game they like?

I've been playing Age of Conan a fair amount over the last week, trying to figure out if I like it well enough to continue paying for it on a monthly basis after my free month expires. The problem is that it's going to be my second MMOG -- the one I play when I'm not busy farming or raiding with my guild on World of Warcraft. Even for someone who writes about videogames professionally, when you start stacking up multiple subscriptions, things get pricey pretty fast. Usually, I keep two subs active at a time and write about what I'm playing.

Anyway, I've been trying to make this decision and I have a problem: I hop classes a lot. When you're talking about a 250 hour investment, you want to make sure that you pick a class you enjoy playing. To figure out what you enjoy playing, you really just have to try the classes out -- especially when the classes are as unique as the ones in Age of Conan. I've leveled two characters to the high teens in Tortage, and several more to the 10ish range. What I've decided, after doing all of this poking around with the classes, is that AoC's first 20 levels are about as frustrating as they can be once the initial sheen of "new game wonder" wears off. If you didn't notice it your first time through, just wait until you make your first alt.