Current Popular Body Parts

[steeljane42]

3 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

True. But BOM was instituted to improve performance overall. Many have missed that point. Seems you did.

Like ACI, many ignored it and wanted to turn it off. But, overall the effect has been as intended. Most of the ACI 800k avatars have disappeared. So it worked.

I think the same will happen with BOM when ARCTan arrives, another non-killer-feature. People want to look good but performance is a factor for users too. BOM gives performance without sacrificing avatar appearance.

The old-school alpha layers are way simpler and way more flexible. I am already starting to see more alpha layers included with clothes. The 'newer' alpha cuts were a render expensive kludge to replace alpha layers, a feature missing from mesh and prims.

Alpha Cuts require designers to limit the clothes they make to a brand's cuts. Occasionally you'll run into that problem when a designer designs for one brand's cuts and then makes a version for another brand without checking the new target's cuts. I've bought a few things for my Slink Original that did work because of that. With alpha layers the designer has complete freedom and the alpha will work across all brands. Since it is easier for designers and users expect to layers adopted quickly and support for cuts to be slowly dropped.

One of the tricks with alpha layers that Slink added is the ability for the user to adjust the alpha layer, tweak the size of the alpha. We can adjust the layer for a better match something we cannot do with alpha cuts.

Enjoy the cuts while you can. I know that for now it is often a pain to switch over. I so often want to just click and fix that poke through. But, as time goes by we will see designers adopting and including alpha layers with all their stuff. If there is no alpha layer in the demo, many are not going to buy it. Plus I am making my own alpha layers for my existing non-BoM-in-mind clothes. Tedious. But, it is a one time thing for that garment and the layer can be easily used in all the outfits. Often I can design the layer to be general purpose, like my open-toe thigh-boot alpha.

It's the drop in the ocean performance wise, like I already said the single hairstyle with a few styles is many times over of what you can expect to be improved by 10 people using body with just one onion layer instead of usual 3 now. And then someone with 1.5m triangles interactive outfit or ancient non bento catwa head teleports in and... you get the point.

I guess it depends where/with what kind of people you hang out with, too. But most people I meet make their avatars good for themselves and their close ones, which will always render them fully regardless of complexity values. And while I don't think I have a single outfit over 125k with current ACI/complexity calculation formula, I honestly couldn't care less if someone can't see me because their have lower limit. And it won't change later either. I mean, there always will be someone on potato PC from 1.5 decades ago that will always run SL on lowest settings. Last thing I think about when I use SL is how my avi might look for that someone.

So, no, I didn't miss the point. However it's really almost nothing in the grand scheme of things.

And we'll have to disagree on alpha layers. Maybe I'm not around for as long as you are, but I had enough time to suffer through alpha layers from 2012 until late 2014 when modern mesh bodies were released. Alpha cuts is a godsend compared to often badly made and not matching alphas. And yes, I also disagree on it limiting clothing designers, it's been pretty much 5+ years of alpha cuts and content created for it, can't say I did notice any limitations myself, nor I heard even once about any designer complaining about it. At worst the part that can't be alphaed can be rigged the way it doesn't need alpha at all, after all there's plenty of clothes that don't require alpha cuts at all, all the matter of rigging.

And yes, I'm going to enjoy alpha cuts and not planning to switch. I believe it was maitreya CSR who said that auto-alpha/alpha cuts will continue to work as they did and even better, when maitreya releases an update. Plus I believe some male body already fully updated to BoM and maintains all alpha cuts from before, I think someone posted that if alpha masking is set to anything other than 0 it just works, but I'm not 100% sure I got it right. Making own alphas is not what you can expect of average SL user either, they need "wear and forget". I'll also disagree on many not going to buy outfit because there's no alpha in it, especially if alpha cuts will continue to work.

[missyrideout]

8 minutes ago, steeljane42 said:

I believe it was maitreya CSR who said that auto-alpha/alpha cuts will continue to work as they did and even better, when maitreya releases an update.

Yes, have heard this several times in the Maitreya group. It seems clear they won't be getting BoM "right" in the way purists are hoping. It will take all major creators getting everything about BoM right--and every resident adopting it--to move the needle in a truly significant way. And they won't. And LL will never adopt a stance that makes it imperative. But incremental gains are good too! If you only hang out with "good citizens" or whatever maybe it will make a huge difference. Long story short, upgrade your computers.

Edited January 13, 2020 by missyrideout
the royal you :P

[Scylla Rhiadra]

5 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

I agree. Redux is nice. But I don't see any difference between it and Physique.

Probably what I was thinking of here was the asymmetry harness, which is a not-unimportant new tool. You're right that the basic shape hasn't changed (because of course they don't want to break existing content).

5 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

I don't understand the support for Hourglass and the lack of Original support. Once the Original version has been made the changes for Hourglass are minor and easy. Going the other way, H to O, is tricky. So, I would think most would support Original. But, maybe they don't read directions...

Interesting! I didn't know this, although it makes sense. But the fact that Physique is being left out in cold notwithstanding makes me wonder about this . . .

5 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

I am a great fan of freedom and the free market is a great expression of freedom. Voting with L$ is influential. Also, asking for what one wants. I send requests to designers now and then asking for versions made for Original. I think if we want to see it change we hard body girls have to speak up. Otherwise the big butt babes win.

. . . because I'm increasingly thinking that this isn't about the "free market." I really am strongly beginning to think that Maitreya is throwing its weight around and using its leverage on the market to cut out the competition. And the competition for Lara isn't HG (or Freya), it's Physique.

Maybe we need anti-trust regulations in SL, because whatever is happening right now is undercutting the power of the free market, which resides in the principle of fair competition.

5 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

With alpha layers the designer has complete freedom and the alpha will work across all brands. Since it is easier for designers and users expect to layers adopted quickly and support for cuts to be slowly dropped.

One of the tricks with alpha layers that Slink added is the ability for the user to adjust the alpha layer, tweak the size of the alpha. We can adjust the layer for a better match something we cannot do with alpha cuts.

Yeah, this is hugely important, and why I am going to stick to Physique, rather than (as at one time I was considering) switching over to Lara. In fact, in the long run, Physique will be a far more powerful and flexible body than those which have not fully and intelligently embraced BOM.

5 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

But, as time goes by we will see designers adopting and including alpha layers with all their stuff. If there is no alpha layer in the demo, many are not going to buy it.

And that's why I'm basically no longer buying anything -- clothes, makeup, skins -- that are not BOM compliant now. I'm not going to drop money on something that I'm later likely to find  unusable, or that will require what you call "tedious" work on my part.

[steeljane42]

48 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

. . . because I'm increasingly thinking that this isn't about the "free market." I really am strongly beginning to think that Maitreya is throwing its weight around and using its leverage on the market to cut out the competition. And the competition for Lara isn't HG (or Freya), it's Physique.

Maybe we need anti-trust regulations in SL, because whatever is happening right now is undercutting the power of the free market, which resides in the principle of fair competition.

You're at least 4-4.5 years late for that "hate train" and conspiracy theories. "But the body I like is not supported well enough, must be evil manipulations!". Except while Maitreya was a known brand before they made the body they got as popular after they made the body and it got its numbers. I'll remind you that physique was out (by almost half a year) before maitreya and before belleza venus, slink was also known for years before as creator of most popular and used mesh hands and feet, which you could see on so many people before (and even after) full mesh bodies became a thing.

They lost all their popularity since then, except for the hourglass. I don't think I ever saw their bento heads in world, not even once. Must be evil Catwa, Lelutka and Genus for cutting them from the competition too? Except they don't. Brands just come and go, I'm sure you can remember of countless other big stores and brands that got less and less popular over the years with the raise of alternative and (sometimes) change of tech. Good example would be Lolas (mesh breasts). When better options became available - people forgot about them in the matter of months.

Sorry, but that's how it works. People buy what they like. And even very questionable Legacy body from a creator with very shady history is way more popular and supported than physique just after half a year since release, while physique is out for 5.5. Partially it's good PR, partially it's agreement between body and clothing creators (that's why you can find plenty of said legacy body booths to purchase in popular clothing stores), partially it's because some people actually like it, despite it being a broken mess at high altitudes and little lesser broken mess at the ground level.

I know it sucks when body of your choice is not supported. I'd probably use belleza venus if it was even support accross all bodies, but it's been neglected even more than physique since release of Isis and Freya in 2015 (Isis is also being phased out now in favor of Legacy). But that's how things are. Besides, even if someone (for example TMP) pays a whole lot for other stores and bloggers to promote their body or even to create things for it. It's still a free market, those creators and bloggers are not LL employes and they are free to do/create anything they want to and reasons why they do is no one's business.

Edited January 13, 2020 by steeljane42

[Scylla Rhiadra]

[Redacted, because sometimes I'm a grumpy idiot.]

Edited January 14, 2020 by Scylla Rhiadra

[steeljane42]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Oh puhleaze . . .

I don't have "brand loyalty." I don't lose sleep at night worrying that "my favourite body" is no longer well supported.

You make some good points here. Thank you for those.

But spare me the snide personal insinuations please.

I don't have a brand loyality either. I might have a severe dislike towards certain RL and SL brands, though (not slink, if you wonder, I even have ancient versions of physique body and their hands/feet somewhere, which I didn't use once since 2014), which I won't support for one reason or another. But I found it funny enough that you really thought it must be some "manipulations", which was quite popular topic around 2015-2016 (I don't post whole lot, but I do lurk around forums enough to keep up with stuff). It were mostly belleza users then, that were all sad about not getting certain exclusives.

In a way it's a bit of a vicious circle, though. Maitreya (could be any other brand, would things align for them, for example belleza venus not being broken forever) got popular and such popularity made it so certain creators with limited amount of time for rigging decided to rig only for it, because of one simple reason: time-money ratio is better that way. It made body even more popular and appealing, because... well, more content made for it, which did push other creators to focus on it as well. Not everyone can afford to hire a rigger, like some big and well know brands do and from what I know, it's very time consuming (and boring) to do it right, so I can totally see why creators would rather release 2-3 different things rigged for 1-3 bodies, which cover 75-85% of the market, than one thing for all existing bodies just to have possible customers from those last 15%. I actually seen a store that did drop Freya in favor of Legacy recently, because of the rigging, so...

P.S.

Didn't meant to be all that snarky. But I'm glad you found some points I made somewhat useful.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

35 minutes ago, steeljane42 said:

I don't have a brand loyality either. I might have a severe dislike towards certain RL and SL brands, though (not slink, if you wonder, I even have ancient versions of physique body and their hands/feet somewhere, which I didn't use once since 2014), which I won't support for one reason or another. But I found it funny enough that you really thought it must be some "manipulations", which was quite popular topic around 2015-2016 (I don't post whole lot, but I do lurk around forums enough to keep up with stuff). It were mostly belleza users then, that were all sad about not getting certain exclusives.

In a way it's a bit of a vicious circle, though. Maitreya (could be any other brand, would things align for them, for example belleza venus not being broken forever) got popular and such popularity made it so certain creators with limited amount of time for rigging decided to rig only for it, because of one simple reason: time-money ratio is better that way. It made body even more popular and appealing, because... well, more content made for it, which did push other creators to focus on it as well. Not everyone can afford to hire a rigger, like some big and well know brands do and from what I know, it's very time consuming (and boring) to do it right, so I can totally see why creators would rather release 2-3 different things rigged for 1-3 bodies, which cover 75-85% of the market, than one thing for all existing bodies just to have possible customers from those last 15%. I actually seen a store that did drop Freya in favor of Legacy recently, because of the rigging, so...

P.S.

Didn't meant to be all that snarky. But I'm glad you found some points I made somewhat useful.

Let me begin by thanking you, and apologizing for flying off the handle at you. I'm evidently grumpy today, and should be wearing a sign warning people to keep their distance. You did indeed make worthwhile points, most of which I agree with. You add to those with this post, so thank you again.

I'm about to make dinner, so I'll come back later to address what you have to say, but I did want to stop in quickly to apologize.

[MoiraKathleen]

I have (and have used for various periods of time) Tonic Fine, Physique and Maitreya.  For awhile, I only bought clothes that had versions for all 3.  I have since decided to just use Physique, partly for the BOM, and partly because it is the one I like best from the three.  I'm not a big events shopper, and probably wouldn't be considered a 'big name' creator shopper,  so I haven't really noticed any  issues with finding clothes I like for Physique. 

I think that people need to try demos of all the major brands of bodies, look to see if the style of clothes they like are available for it from places that they want to shop from, and choose the one that they like the best which they also feel best meets their clothing and accessory needs.   I second-guessed myself partly because of recommendations and things I read here in the forums, which is why I ended up with 3 different bodies - I may have been better off to have just stuck with my gut-feeling which was Physique (at least it would have been better for my pocketbook) but there's probably some good from having really given the other two bodies a good try as well.

[Nalates Urriah]

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

And that's why I'm basically no longer buying anything -- clothes, makeup, skins -- that are not BOM compliant now. I'm not going to drop money on something that I'm later likely to find  unusable, or that will require what you call "tedious" work on my part.

Gotta look in the demo... some are making stuff that is BoM ready, which is often thrown in with an applier.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

26 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Gotta look in the demo... some are making stuff that is BoM ready, which is often thrown in with an applier.

Yep. Some demos contain the absolute minimum, unfortunately -- even HUDs are sometimes just loaded as textures. But, yes, agreed! And makers are cluing into BOM now: I'm seeing more products that specify that they contain system layers -- but alpha layers for mesh clothing are still something of a rarity, from my experience.

I'm slowly building up a small (and still inadequate) toolkit of makeup, hair bases, and so on that are BOM.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, steeljane42 said:

I don't have a brand loyality either. I might have a severe dislike towards certain RL and SL brands, though (not slink, if you wonder, I even have ancient versions of physique body and their hands/feet somewhere, which I didn't use once since 2014), which I won't support for one reason or another. But I found it funny enough that you really thought it must be some "manipulations", which was quite popular topic around 2015-2016 (I don't post whole lot, but I do lurk around forums enough to keep up with stuff). It were mostly belleza users then, that were all sad about not getting certain exclusives.

In a way it's a bit of a vicious circle, though. Maitreya (could be any other brand, would things align for them, for example belleza venus not being broken forever) got popular and such popularity made it so certain creators with limited amount of time for rigging decided to rig only for it, because of one simple reason: time-money ratio is better that way. It made body even more popular and appealing, because... well, more content made for it, which did push other creators to focus on it as well. Not everyone can afford to hire a rigger, like some big and well know brands do and from what I know, it's very time consuming (and boring) to do it right, so I can totally see why creators would rather release 2-3 different things rigged for 1-3 bodies, which cover 75-85% of the market, than one thing for all existing bodies just to have possible customers from those last 15%. I actually seen a store that did drop Freya in favor of Legacy recently, because of the rigging, so...

P.S.

Didn't meant to be all that snarky. But I'm glad you found some points I made somewhat useful.

I wrote a nice long reply to this that the forum software ate. Grrrrr!

I'll keep it short: there's a very fine line, maybe, between a legitimate leveraging of market position, and monopolistic practices. I don't think it's necessary to think in terms of "conspiracies" to imagine that Maitreya is using its enormous power to extract concessions. But I certainly don't have any proof of that, and it certainly may be nothing more, as you suggest, than part-time creators maximizing their time and effort by focusing on the one body that they know is very popular. It's interesting to note, in that context, that some of the larger and more popular makers (I'm thinking Addams and Blueberry) still package their products with a wide variety of different sizings -- either because they're large enough not to be pressured, or because they are sophisticated operations that can take the time to produce these.

Whatever the cause, and whether or not it involves pressure from Maitreya, I think that the tendency towards a Maitreya monopoly for at least one kind of female body is a bad thing, for consumers, for creators, and for the platform. The key to the success of free market forces, the mechanism that makes them "tick," is competition. Should Maitreya ever succeed in completely cornering its market, it will have an inordinate amount of power over clothing, skin, and accessory makers. Consumers will have less choice, and innovation will be, at the very least, much hampered.

I'm not sure what the answer to this is, but I'm going to do my little bit by sticking with Slink, and generally avoiding at least those larger creators (and I can name a few) who create only for Lara. It's not that I "dislike" Maitreya -- Lara seems to me pretty interchangeable with Physique in terms of its shape anyway -- but just because I want to see healthy competition and choice in the market.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Maitreya got popular for 2 reasons:

1. Even though it was late to the party, after Slink, after Belleza, and after that body that was actually first that got pulled due to a legal complaint about copyright violation (what was it's name again... been so long... the actual first fitmesh body got zapped by someone filing a complaint on it - and by the time that was resolved it's maker just chose to leave)... So... despite all this Maitreya came out... and was largely ignored at first... then Belleza CLOSED the ability to get developer kits because they were working on an update... and they took a little MORE than 2 years with no developer kits being given out... to do that update... The biggest mistake any brand has ever made in SL history in my opinion... giving your competition 2 years to take all your customers without even trying to fight back... At that time... I was strongly anti-Belleza because... it badly needed that update. That first version was... not up to par...

2. How Maitreya took advantage of that time... it created the 'Maitreya Exclusive' system - somewhat copied from the TMP folks who had the same thing... the only way to get a full licensed kit was to agree to develop ONLY for them... and for 2 years no one else would give you a kit anyway... TMP's kit was even more exclusionary... and I believe Slink's kit required handing over real world contact info or something (not sure on this last part, people I know who tried to get the Slink kit told me they hit brick walls and when I looked myself I remember something in there I found disturbing but it's been a LONG time)... so people went for it...

- Maitreya was always a crap product. It's never been a good body. It has extremely poor response if you move shape dials too far from 50, up OR down... it only works with very limited physics (bosom only?), and those are extremely 'springy' after only slight deviation from the expected baseline... It is low poly... and not for good reasons like some more modern bodies... Belleza is high polygon... for reasons that... some of them are mistakes (the 3 bosom shapes), and some are good (good definition at joints), and some are bad (too many onion layers)... There was one version of Belleza that shipped with a 'LITE' (yes that is a misspelling that they themselves did) version that had only 1 onion layer... so there was this brief period when it was lower polygon without losing quality...

But Maitreya... did not win for quality... it had timing, tactics, and competitor blunders...

It is worth noting that once Slink had Hourglass out... they started to regain some of the lost market share... but it was too little too late... however by that time I believe they wizened up on not having absurdly difficult to obtain creator kits... and they had a look that was different, and Belleza was still in lockdown...

Hourglass gained ground for the same reason Tonic and TMP2.0 (Legacy) now gains ground... even many Maitreya users dislike it... it's just the option they're kinda stuck with...

All of these brands are run by people that just do not understand business and being market ruthless, save for one... and that one does not have the same quality product... but it doesn't need to...

 

Edited January 14, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[steeljane42]

2 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

Maitreya got popular for 2 reasons:

1. Even though it was late to the party, after Slink, after Belleza, and after that body that was actually first that got pulled due to a legal complaint about copyright violation (what was it's name again... been so long... the actual first fitmesh body got zapped by someone filing a complaint on it - and by the time that was resolved it's maker just chose to leave)... So... despite all this Maitreya came out... and was largely ignored at first... then Belleza CLOSED the ability to get developer kits because they were working on an update... and they took a little MORE than 2 years with no developer kits being given out... to do that update... The biggest mistake any brand has ever made in SL history in my opinion... giving your competition 2 years to take all your customers without even trying to fight back... At that time... I was strongly anti-Belleza because... it badly needed that update. That first version was... not up to par...

2. How Maitreya took advantage of that time... it created the 'Maitreya Exclusive' system - somewhat copied from the TMP folks who had the same thing... the only way to get a full licensed kit was to agree to develop ONLY for them... and for 2 years no one else would give you a kit anyway... TMP's kit was even more exclusionary... and I believe Slink's kit required handing over real world contact info or something (not sure on this last part, people I know who tried to get the Slink kit told me they hit brick walls and when I looked myself I remember something in there I found disturbing but it's been a LONG time)... so people went for it...

- Maitreya was always a crap product. It's never been a good body. It has extremely poor response if you move shape dials too far from 50, up OR down... it only works with very limited physics (bosom only?), and those are extremely 'springy' after only slight deviation from the expected baseline... It is low poly... and not for good reasons like some more modern bodies... Belleza is high polygon... for reasons that... some of them are mistakes (the 3 bosom shapes), and some are good (good definition at joints), and some are bad (too many onion layers)... There was one version of Belleza that shipped with a 'LITE' (yes that is a misspelling that they themselves did) version that had only 1 onion layer... so there was this brief period when it was lower polygon without losing quality...

But Maitreya... did not win for quality... it had timing, tactics, and competitor blunders...

It is worth noting that once Slink had Hourglass out... they started to regain some of the lost market share... but it was too little too late... however by that time I believe they wizened up on not having absurdly difficult to obtain creator kits... and they had a look that was different, and Belleza was still in lockdown...

Hourglass gained ground for the same reason Tonic and TMP2.0 (Legacy) now gains ground... even many Maitreya users dislike it... it's just the option they're kinda stuck with...

All of these brands are run by people that just do not understand business and being market ruthless, save for one... and that one does not have the same quality product... but it doesn't need to...

 

WOWMeh was pulled out for DMCA, it happened around summer 2014 I think, before belleza's and maitreya's release. But I don't think it would have held the ground anyway, compared to other bodies.

Not sure which world or part of SL did you live in around maitreya's release time, but it was anything, but ignored. It took me a full day just to get to the sim to buy it and it was lucky, some did wait for 4-5 days of non stop attempts, worse than shopping events these days without premium account. Clothing support started shortly after, too. I'll agree about weird thing on Belleza's part, though.

Now to your 2nd point, which I saw a few times on forums and elsewhere. There was/is no actual proof, but speculations. Besides if you bother to check some stores on MP, even blueberry, that theory just crashes hard. Their oldest available clothes of theirs are usual standard sizes, next to them are venus and physique sizes on top of the standard ones, then standard+venus/physique/maitreya. And no, blueberry wasn't as big back then to get some exclusive treatment either.

Now to what's crap and what is not, it's the matter of preferences. I'm pretty happy maitreya user since its release and while, like I said, I'd probably use venus instead if I could, it's not that much different in my opinion (smoothness of venus is purely because of all those extra triangles). Then again I have pretty average/small shape, would I want something extra curvy I'd totally go for freya instead. Maitreya's physics has breasts and belly ones, but no for butt.

Speaking about business and tactics, I actually think TMP are good at it. I mean they managed to squeeze into the market so late with pretty much broken product that is not fixed since release (and knowing TMP it might never get out of that "beta" stage either) that cost 2x+ over any competing brand. Plus they have "awful" feet, which alone have 211k vertices more than whole belleza body combined (they can be resized via shape slider, though).

[Blush Bravin]

9 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

How Maitreya took advantage of that time... it created the 'Maitreya Exclusive' system - somewhat copied from the TMP folks who had the same thing... the only way to get a full licensed kit was to agree to develop ONLY for them.

Totally false!!! I have had the developer kit since it was first released. At no time was there any suggestion made that I should only make for the one brand. I don't know where you're getting this story but it is false - false - false!!!! 

And to make things perfectly clear - yes, I am a moderator for the Maitreya Lara Friends group now but at the time I got the developer kit I had absolutely no ties to the brand at all. In fact I was making content for Slink, Wowmeh, and TMP at the time Maitreya was released. I had applied for the Belleza kit but as you mentioned they had stopped handing out the kit.

[Nalates Urriah]

12 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

[...snip...]

Whatever the cause, and whether or not it involves pressure from Maitreya, I think that the tendency towards a Maitreya monopoly for at least one kind of female body is a bad thing, for consumers, for creators, and for the platform. The key to the success of free market forces, the mechanism that makes them "tick," is competition. Should Maitreya ever succeed in completely cornering its market, it will have an inordinate amount of power over clothing, skin, and accessory makers. Consumers will have less choice, and innovation will be, at the very least, much hampered.

[...snip...]

The reason monopolies work in RL is a thing named 'start up costs'. The acquisition of manufacturing machinery, staff, licencing, training... make startup in some fields expensive. At that point in time the established company can drop prices, often below cost, to drive a startup competitor out of business. Once competition is eliminated then prices can be raised to any level as they are the only ones that have the product.

In the 20th century AT&T monopolized telecommunications and was broken into the Baby Bells. With the advent of the Internet lots of people started communication companies. AT&T has been buying up the Baby Bells but there is no chance of them ever becoming a communications monopoly.

In SL there are essentially no start up costs. A hobbyist is not concerned with training and labor costs. The RL factors that allow monopolies in RL do not exist in SL in way that could lock out a new competitive start up. 

Market share in SL is determined by users' preferences. It is an almost pure free market scenario. Something that never happens in communist or socialist systems.

 

10 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

[...snip...]

2. How Maitreya took advantage of that time... it created the 'Maitreya Exclusive' system - somewhat copied from the TMP folks who had the same thing... the only way to get a full licensed kit was to agree to develop ONLY for them... and for 2 years no one else would give you a kit anyway... TMP's kit was even more exclusionary... and I believe Slink's kit required handing over real world contact info or something (not sure on this last part, people I know who tried to get the Slink kit told me they hit brick walls and when I looked myself I remember something in there I found disturbing but it's been a LONG time)... so people went for it...

[...snip...]

 

I've had the Slink Dev Kit for a long time, 5+ years. Never got a request for RL info.

20 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

Totally false!!! I have had the developer kit since it was first released. At no time was there any suggestion made that I should only make for the one brand. I don't know where you're getting this story but it is false - false - false!!!! 

I looked at getting a Maitreya Dev Kit. I don't recall any exclusivity clause... I would never have agreed to such terms and suspect many others would not have.

[Blush Bravin]

10 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

and I believe Slink's kit required handing over real world contact info or something

The only real world info Slink ever required was an email address so they could send you the files. 

[Janet Voxel]

The slink dev kit was a problem back in the day because they had someone really terrible deciding who got them. A bad CSR can really make your whole brand look bad and some CSRs get big heads when they are given power like that.

edit: now that I think about it, the run in with the csr made me switch to Maitreya.
 

I applied for one a few months ago, two day turnaround.

Edited January 14, 2020 by janetosilio

[Marianne Little]

Maitreya had looked into the future and foreseen what Belleza did. So they could time their release to - when customers was fed up with Belleza and ready to toss it.

🙄

I bought Belleza when it was totally new. I had Slink Physique, but I didn't like the hips and the way the collarbones stood out. Belleza was a "solid" brand, but their Venus was not. I was a bit exited and thought that well, if it was some small stuff it would be updated soon.

Bad neck fit. Really bad.

Even the body that came in one piece, had a color difference on feet and hands.

It was something about the HUD beeing remapped. If I remember right, the hands was using another map than the default SL map?

Confusion about skin tones. Even Bellezas own skins could have differences from head to body, or on body and hands.

One of the Venus bodies came without feet and hands, and was meant for Slink hands and feet. Good idea, but the fit wasn't good at all. Feet worked after 6 months so so... but for hands, you had to set torso muscle to 50, and the Slink hands would still not fit good.

Belleza used a long time to fix the issues. Belleza is really the worst with updates. If they were the only mesh body, they could sit back and relax, but when they have competition, they can't spend so long time on updates.

No developer kits sent out for 2 years? Genious.

I had stopped wearing it before I bought Maitreya, and then I was never using it again. The issues I listed over, was not on Maitreya Lara. I remember reading about developer kits, and it is a big lie that it was only given to those who would make Maitreya and no other brand. Only issue was that the line of developers was so long, that they had to wait a few more days because Maitreya was sending out kits as fast they could, but could not keep up. People were wild about Maitreya from the first days.

I am not sure if I would recommend Belleza now, because of the really long time it takes to update. They will see what others do, and do it better? Well, but what if customers have moved on?

 

Edited January 14, 2020 by Marianne Little
Typos, and added a few points about hands.

[Paul Hexem]

On 1/14/2020 at 12:25 AM, Pussycat Catnap said:

Maitreya got popular for 2 reasons:

1. Even though it was late to the party, after Slink, after Belleza, and after that body that was actually first that got pulled due to a legal complaint about copyright violation (what was it's name again... been so long... the actual first fitmesh body got zapped by someone filing a complaint on it - and by the time that was resolved it's maker just chose to leave)... So... despite all this Maitreya came out... and was largely ignored at first... then Belleza CLOSED the ability to get developer kits because they were working on an update... and they took a little MORE than 2 years with no developer kits being given out... to do that update... The biggest mistake any brand has ever made in SL history in my opinion... giving your competition 2 years to take all your customers without even trying to fight back... At that time... I was strongly anti-Belleza because... it badly needed that update. That first version was... not up to par...

2. How Maitreya took advantage of that time... it created the 'Maitreya Exclusive' system - somewhat copied from the TMP folks who had the same thing... the only way to get a full licensed kit was to agree to develop ONLY for them... and for 2 years no one else would give you a kit anyway... TMP's kit was even more exclusionary... and I believe Slink's kit required handing over real world contact info or something (not sure on this last part, people I know who tried to get the Slink kit told me they hit brick walls and when I looked myself I remember something in there I found disturbing but it's been a LONG time)... so people went for it...

- Maitreya was always a crap product. It's never been a good body. It has extremely poor response if you move shape dials too far from 50, up OR down... it only works with very limited physics (bosom only?), and those are extremely 'springy' after only slight deviation from the expected baseline... It is low poly... and not for good reasons like some more modern bodies... Belleza is high polygon... for reasons that... some of them are mistakes (the 3 bosom shapes), and some are good (good definition at joints), and some are bad (too many onion layers)... There was one version of Belleza that shipped with a 'LITE' (yes that is a misspelling that they themselves did) version that had only 1 onion layer... so there was this brief period when it was lower polygon without losing quality...

But Maitreya... did not win for quality... it had timing, tactics, and competitor blunders...

It is worth noting that once Slink had Hourglass out... they started to regain some of the lost market share... but it was too little too late... however by that time I believe they wizened up on not having absurdly difficult to obtain creator kits... and they had a look that was different, and Belleza was still in lockdown...

Hourglass gained ground for the same reason Tonic and TMP2.0 (Legacy) now gains ground... even many Maitreya users dislike it... it's just the option they're kinda stuck with...

All of these brands are run by people that just do not understand business and being market ruthless, save for one... and that one does not have the same quality product... but it doesn't need to...

 

 

On 1/14/2020 at 11:05 AM, Nalates Urriah said:

The reason monopolies work in RL is a thing named 'start up costs'. The acquisition of manufacturing machinery, staff, licencing, training... make startup in some fields expensive. At that point in time the established company can drop prices, often below cost, to drive a startup competitor out of business. Once competition is eliminated then prices can be raised to any level as they are the only ones that have the product.

In the 20th century AT&T monopolized telecommunications and was broken into the Baby Bells. With the advent of the Internet lots of people started communication companies. AT&T has been buying up the Baby Bells but there is no chance of them ever becoming a communications monopoly.

In SL there are essentially no start up costs. A hobbyist is not concerned with training and labor costs. The RL factors that allow monopolies in RL do not exist in SL in way that could lock out a new competitive start up. 

Market share in SL is determined by users' preferences. It is an almost pure free market scenario. Something that never happens in communist or socialist systems.

 

I've had the Slink Dev Kit for a long time, 5+ years. Never got a request for RL info.

I looked at getting a Maitreya Dev Kit. I don't recall any exclusivity clause... I would never have agreed to such terms and suspect many others would not have.

 

On 1/14/2020 at 12:01 PM, janetosilio said:

The slink dev kit was a problem back in the day because they had someone really terrible deciding who got them. A bad CSR can really make your whole brand look bad and some CSRs get big heads when they are given power like that.

edit: now that I think about it, the run in with the csr made me switch to Maitreya.
 

I applied for one a few months ago, two day turnaround.

As someone that collects dev kits, I can say two things confidently.

Slink is (or at least was) the worst. I was flat out told no, because the person talking to me didn't like my gadget store.

I can aslo say that for all the hate Niramyth Aesthetic gets, it's the best body for getting development permissions and for modifying (which is why it's so disappointing that more creators aren't making stuff for it).

[Janet Voxel]

2 hours ago, Gadget Portal said:

Slink is (or at least was) the worst. I was flat out told no, because the person talking to me didn't like my gadget store.

Probably the same person I ran into. I didn’t mess with slink products for a couple years because of it.

2 hours ago, Gadget Portal said:

I can aslo say that for all the hate Niramyth Aesthetic gets, it's the best body for getting development permissions and for modifying (which is why it's so disappointing that more creators aren't making stuff for it).

You would think after the brouhaha over kits a few years ago, creators would’ve learned to just make the kits freely available. 
 

Instead, it created a climate where people want to create, but don’t want to do it for the bodies they can get kits for, they want to create for kits they have a hard time getting. If you want to create, create! Use what’s available to you. There’s a market for those other bodies and you can do alright just selling things for other bodies.