A newcomer-friendly Mindful Cove in Second Life

The Destination Guide recently led me to visit Mindful Cove, an interesting Full private region with something of a double life.  On the ground, it offers a natural setting in which to relax and explore and – it you are interested – join in the local music and mediation session (subject to available guides). Up in the sky, it offers a new user orientation centre, allowing it to a part of the Second Life Community Gateway programme.

Mindful Cove is a Second Life Community Gateway with a focus on mental health resources.. We offer plenty of fun, interactive resources for New Residents, and a tranquil space for all SL Residents to come and enjoy.  

– From Mindful Cove’s About Land description

The region design is largely designed by Ella Pavlona on behalf of the Mindful Cove group. The ground level are offers an open wilderness with a backdrop of off-region mountains which, together with the sequoia-like trees, give it the sense of being somewhere in North America. The Landing Point offers a fair amount of information on the local group, events in the region, and the all-important teleport board up to the orientation area.

From the Landing point, exploration of the ground level setting is simply a case of following your feet; there is a trail that loops around  the setting, starting as a dirt track leading away from the Landing Point. This will take visitors around to the group’s main headquarters, with a café, meeting rooms, lounges, etc.

Beyond this, the trail continues over a stream to an outdoor events area, which I gather hosts the music events and other activities (details on the notice boards to be found there and at the landing point and elsewhere). From here the path gets a little wilder and harder to follow, but it is worth persevering as the region is photogenic and you might come across peddle boats to rez and ride, places to sit and pass the time, and so on.

Find your way across the eastern stream as it passes close the the Landing Point (there are stepping stones!), and although trail offers further opportunities for exploration and / or relaxing  – although I would suggest a few more would not go amiss in helping to attract visitors. Within its screen of high hills, this eastern and southern part of the region has a very calming sense of remoteness to to and makes for an engaging space in which to wander and take photos.

The orientation air follows the look and feel of the ground level, with a country trail circling a wooded lake. It also follows the familiar approach to teaching new users about the viewer and its controls and key aspects of Second Life: via a follow, read, and try orientation walk.

In this case, learning takes the form of following the trail as it takes the user through a series of lessons: basic avatar movement / navigation suing the keyboard and / or a mouse, progressing through camera controls, sitting, discovering how to make friends, join groups, communicate in text and / or voice, and so on and so forth. Information boards are provided in English, and despite being on transparent panels (which gives them a nice sense of floating) are very clear and easy to follow.

The approach may seem pedestrian (no pun intended) to some; but the fact is, it works; there is nothing better than learning at your own pace, and I would suggest that by-and-large it is potentially somewhat more successful than having an orientation area loaded with “helpers” or “mentors” all with an eagerness to help – which can be a little overwhelming for some new users. Of course, a lack of mentors does mean a lack of people of whom questions can be asked; but again, I’d suggest this is not a significant loss – again, people are liable to be less nervous or embarrassed with any mistakes they make if they don’t feel they have someone watching them – possibly critically.

The orientation walk at Mindful Cove travels roughly half-way around a central lake, ending at a pair of building with an outdoor terrace area with a rezzing, new starter gifts and additional information. This also provides a teleport back down to the ground level, while beyond it is space into which the orientation walk could expand.

To be honest, I’m not sure how much use the orientation area gets, or how active mindful Cove is as a Community Gateway (but then, LL don’t seem to be as engaged with the programme as they were when it relaunched in 2017). No-one was making use of the orientation area during my visits, which could make it an ideal place to take anyone you bring into SL yourself and want to let them try the lessons, or come across a new user  struggling with the viewer. Again as already noted, the lessons are nicely laid out and easy to follow, and the location pleasant enough and quiet enough such that that might welcome the opportunity of work through ay of the lessons that are relevant to them and reach a place where they feel more at home in-world and with the viewer.

Taken as a whole, Mindful Cove is an interesting / pleasant visit with some nice opportunities for photography and for participating in any events held there (there were two music events for September, so not sure what October will bring).  The region has a evening sky EEP setting across both the ground level and orientation area (although I used my own EEP when photographing the former), and the landscape on the ground is nicely laid out and accompanied by a suitable soundscape, so do have local sounds enabled.

In all, a very pleasing and interesting visit.

SLurl Details

• Mindful Cove (rated Moderate)