Identities: My 3D Avatar Diary (Twinity) - Day 2

With my 2nd day on Twinity, I was pleasantly surprised with the sudden and friendly welcome I received from nearby players as soon as I logged into the game. The first person who welcomed me was called Simone, and upon further conversation with her, I discovered she was actually a member of the support staff. Although, running into a member of staff was quite beneficial for me as I was able to ask her for some help I needed, including my difficulties with the camera controls. The camera is pretty horrendous in this to be honest, if you turn around for instance, it will swing around immediately and this can get very confusing and nauseating if end up turning a lot at once. I tried zooming the camera out to reduce the problem, but it still kept doing it, which was pretty annoying. I decided to ignore it and continue in the end, although the movement controls do still annoy me a fair bit at the moment. You can only move around with the keyboard, the mouse cannot be used to move around by the looks of it which is annoying, as I hate playing games with a lack of mouse based movement.

On a brighter note, whilst I was chatted to Simone, I discovered the game was completely German based, hence explaining why there is a digital recreation of Berlin in the game. She also told me about websites being embedded into billboards which can be seen in the screenshot below. I found this quite impressive especially seeing as you can embed any website you want in your own apartment as well by the use of blank photo frames in the game. Although to be honest, with the freedom to embed "any" website you want, this feature could easily be abused by the naughtier variety of players out there :P.
As you can see in the screenshot above, I managed to get into conversation with 2 other players as well, as they greeted me whilst I was talking to Simone. They did not say very much though, but one of them was new to the game like me so I assumed they were taking some time to familiarise themselves with the interface and controls.

Whilst I was waiting for the game to load the Welcome Area earlier, I noticed an advert on the loading screen, which mentioned the display of a gigantic christmas tree at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin City. This immediately grabbed my attention and I decided to set off on a hunt to find where the tree is, which I ultimately regretted. You know when they say the game is digital recreation of Berlin city...they aren't exaggerating! I teleported to the centre of Berlin city, and assumed I'd be able to find this tree in no time. Within minutes of arriving there, I was just as lost as the next guy. Due to the camera still being a nuisance and the limited movement controls, I wasn't up for running around especially considering how huge the city actually was!
I immediately went back to the Welcome Area and asked Simone for the best route there in roder to make my life a hell of a lot easier.

After speaking with Simone, I learned I could teleport to where the tree was located directly, which pleased me a lot but it wouldn't last long... Ironically, I wasn't sure why but you could not teleport there for the time being due to some technical problems, which really annoyed me. I dont mean to rant, but why go to all the effort of creating a magnificient, eye teasingly good chritmas tree for curious people to hunt and discover if you cannot even teleport to the location for the duration of the time the tree is up? It was only up until the 5th so I a few days left to go find it, buy my search eventually become very uneventful and disappointing.

Simone told me I could reach the Brandenburg Gate area by walking from the Musuem area, so I thought I'd give it shot and see what happened. I teleported to the Musuem area, only to get a kick of deja vu. As this is is a digital recreation of a city, the Musuem area alone was fairly huge which intimidated me a lot, and it did not help I forgot to ask Simone what direction I should walk in when at the Musuem, which was a very "clever" move. Seeing as I have no knowledge of the geography of Berlin at all, and that my patience and enthusiasm were fading, I decided to give up on finding the tree, as I could end up going in circles or going a considerable distance in the wrong direction even.

My impressions of the game actually have become fairly negative now due to my experiences today, but I'm nowhere near creating a final impression of it. There is still a fair amount of things to do in the game, and seeing as I'm new to this game as well as a complete greenhorn to online games, I've decided to ride this wave along and see where it takes me. Who knows after all, I may actually end up enjoying my experience after all in the future...I am interested in the fact that you can buy your own apartment and customise it to how you see fit, so that is something I will definitely look at in the the future.