Yes, it’s been a number of years since I ‘settled in’ here. However there are still new people coming in every day and I wanted to give a ‘how to’ of some inexpensive and simple ways of de-noobing oneself and quickly getting settled into your new virtual world.

Admittedly it has been some time since I’ve done a huge shopping spree here, because I have so many things that I’ve acquired over the years that I get rather lazy. I ACTUALLY often wear the same outfit days in a row. hah! Of course, this is also because a lot of my time spent in InWorldz is in various roleplay environments, and for those I have preset folders that I can quickly ‘wear’ and switch from character to character and sometimes the same scene continues over a few day period and there is simply no need to change. Also, my homes I have here are SO fully furnished with so much now , things I love and I just cant think of what I feel like swapping out for anything new.

So, I decided to go out shopping, and see what I could put together for very cheap.

Setting up a Home Base

First off is getting a home base. I know what you’re thinking – ‘Hold up! I need to fix up this starter avi into something decent!’ – yes, starter avis aren’t normally the best, but chosing where you are going to live can be a key part of deciding what kind of avatar you want to start with. Also of course, you then have a place to rez all your new amazing things, rather than using a sandbox. After all, this post is called ‘Settling in… ‘ not ‘Coming to visit and wanting to look awesome’ However if you are more interested in getting your avi all sorted first, scroll down because that is included also!

There are, of course, homes available on any of the premium regions for those who have premium accounts. The low monthly price of 5.95 US gets you a nice sized home on a 2048 sqm region with a total land capacity of 1406 prims (the homes on them are not able to be swapped out, and vary in prim count, but there are stil 1100-1200 prims available after the house. If that isn’t quite to your liking , there are many cheap rent options. I rent out land and sell some parcels, but there are many more out there with better prices than I, that still have lots of prim counts. Charlesworth Estates, Everluxe, Exile, and a variety of parcel rentals as well as actually purchasing your own:
2×2 (4 regions) for 60.00 initial cost, then 85/month total with afterwards 48,000 prims

single private region with 45,000 prims – 75.00

mainland region with 30,000 prims – 40.00 (I myself have two of these and I LOVE it)

Also, many places offer free rent for new residents. I often have small cottages available for new residents for the first month free – I don’t always have any available but feel free to contact me in world, and of course use the Classifieds in Search for other free rentals.

Finding your First Home

This week I went on a hunt to find cheap first homes to put on your first land (if your parcel or land doesn’t come with one) and I was pretty excited to see a nice selection of free homes. Some are a bit high in prims, BUT InWorldz has a very high prim count per parcel so really this is not an issue.

This is the first place I found, and I actually am going to use one of these homes I got from here for myself. http://places.inworldz.com/Cape%20Determination/181/28/21 (firestorm viewer) These homes are given for free by Lily Lightcloud, and are really great spacious places.

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Winter Blues Free Home

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Summer Dreams Free Home

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The Laurels Free Home

For the price of 350 iz, you can get the Woods House, which is a high quality, realistic mesh home with two rooms and only 16 prims. It comes with six different colours to choose from.http://places.inworldz.com/Tune%20Shores/241/197/23

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Woods House – one of six homes, all six colours for 350 iz

If you’d like to spend more izzies for a larger home, there are some nicely done homes at Roots and Shoots/ACCENTZ .http://places.inworldz.com/The%20Mcalpines/79/124/1024 . There is a wide variety to choose from , in many genres

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Large Selection of Homes and Furnishings and Landscaping at Roots And Shoots/ACCENTZ

This is by NO means a complete list at all, but is just to give an idea of some places to start when you want to plop a home down on your shiny new land.

Furnishing your New Place

Here I have listed the first three that I went to visit when searching ‘mesh furniture’ in the viewer search tab. Again this list is nowhere near complete and is offered as a ‘getting started’ with places that are a bit of a ‘one stop’ shop – meaning, able to furnish your whole home without a bunch of other stops to make.

The first I went to today is Simple Reflections located at http://places.inworldz.com/Fisher%20Island/57/218/31 A nice variety of indoor and outdoor furnishings in mesh for a moderate price. At first look there might not seem to be a lot there, but wander around and you are sure to find something awesome.

Simple Reflections

My next stop was Offbeat. And although this may come off as biased because Leanna writes for this blog also, it’s BECAUSE of her skills that her and I became friends. Hers was the first furniture store I came across that contained the sort of items I had become accustomed to in the ‘other grid’. At the time her store was called Phoenix Creations and was done in sculpts and such because InWorldz back then wasn’t supporting mesh yet – as it was still quite new all over. Now her store has been rebranded as Offbeat and she has a very wide variety of household furniture and outdoor furnishings as well at low prices. Her items are high quality mesh and it it still my first place to shop, as well as the landmark I hand out to newcomers. There is even a portal in her store that will bring you to her older non mesh creations which are extremely low in price and still lovely.

Offbeat inside, main area

Offbeat outside with teleports to prefabs as well

Blueberry Patch has many different lovely things as well. Furniture, homes and outdoor things, barns and more. The prices are a bit higher than the other two mentioned, but it is still worth a look because you might just find that ONE thing you were looking for. (Besides the $/izzie conversion is pretty good at InWorldz in general)

http://places.inworldz.com/Blueberry%20Patch/88/186/28

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Accentz has a huge variety of well priced furniture, and considering it is also adjacent to the Homes featured in the above section, as well as a vast amount of landscaping to choose from (also Roots and Shoots) , it could really be a one stop shopping experience.

http://places.inworldz.com/Accentz/168/108/1025

Accentz Furniture and Homes

Finally, I am adding in a favourite of mine. Not only because the animations are super pleasing to the ‘adult’ side of us all but because the quality of furniture is very pleasing – Bad Kitty. You can find interactive (adult) furniture for every room of your home. (you can also find Rosie Lavochkin’s famous male and female genitalia and more)

http://places.inworldz.com/Casiel%20Cove/215/64/24

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Some places that are also worth checking out to complete your home (just use search in the viewer)

A Cottage Affair – furniture, homes and more http://places.inworldz.com/Bella/175/38/1102

Suzy’s Stuff and Nonsense – super interactive furniture, kitchens, and InWorldz ONLY growing, interactive prim babies, with furniture for them also . http://places.inworldz.com/Steampunk%20Isle/103/33/31

Musing Moments Mall http://places.inworldz.com/Musing%20Moments/179/105/2484

and the Lanes http://places.inworldz.com/The%20Lanes/139/90/24

Landscaping

Well, I’ve already mentioned Roots and Shoots, that’s a first stop for many. I’ve also mentioned Domus – the origins of the Woods House, which also has some choice landscaping things (seasonal trees, pines grasses and more)Two other personal favourites are 1) Garden Furniture by Tamara http://places.inworldz.com/Linked%20Hearts/31/24/709

I have pretty much landscaped all my regions only needing to use her things. They are very well priced and versatile. I would definitely call it my one-stop gardening shop. Waterfalls, caves, grasses, trees and much more.

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2) Teal’s Garden Shop -http://places.inworldz.com/Dreamwalker/216/213/22

This was the first landscaping place I found when I came to InWorldz a few years ago and the content and quality is still awesome. I love it.

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And finally…..

Getting YOU ready

Now that you have a place to live, and some ideas as to where to get stuff to make it feel like a home -OR you have skipped all that and just want to find out how to un-noobify for a reasonable price – it is time to share some avi suggestions.

First of all, InWorldz has a perfect all-in-one at Mimi’s Choice. Not only will you find a large selection of clothing from many creators and hair by Mina and Emotions but you will also find Vista Animations right next door as well as Humanoid on site and Redgraves. Really you can’t go wrong using this as a first stop.

http://places.inworldz.com/Mimi%27s%20Choice/177/154/24

Out front of Mimi’s Choice wearing a new sweater dress I got from there. Skin is Renee-HotSkins, body Sapphira Mesh by Imagine, Hair is Damselfly.

If you would like a quick and inexpensive yet unique skin/shape and clothing on site, my first recommendation is Step inSide (there is a LM in Lany Jun’s profile for her store that is invalid, but this is the updated one http://places.inworldz.com/The%20Lanes/210/38/22 )

You will find skins for 500, (she also has the appliers for Sapphira mesh body), as well as the shapes for 200, and a lovely variety of clothing. There are also eyes, lips and more.

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There is also :

HotSkins – http://places.inworldz.com/Gourbiland%20Old%20Village/115/250/22

Deluxe body Factory , Skins and Shapes- http://places.inworldz.com/Passim/144/130/32

Redgrave- http://places.inworldz.com/Mimi%27s%20Choice/129/128/37

and many, many more. Search is your friend.

As for hair, Damselfly was one of my favourites but seems to be gone now. The two others I use quite a bit are .:Emotions and Deviant Designs. There are also some hairs by Mina found at Mimi’s Choice. Lately I’ve bee sporting some cute red curls by Deviant Designs. There are many styles to choose from and great prices.

Kitty hair – Deviant Designs . Skin Katelyn – Morrigan Bellic. Dress Entity – Lost Gem

Deviant Designs – http://places.inworldz.com/Casiel%20Cove/204/206/24

.:EMO-tions -http://places.inworldz.com/Bella/45/50/1102

So, there you have it – some great places to start when getting settled in InWorldz. We have a plethora of talented creators and merchants here with so much available, it’s impossible to list them all, but I hope at the very least that the average person coming into InWorldz can glean some ideas from this article when starting out on their new virtual life here.

*cheers!*

~Moonrise