steeljane42

Pretty much. Unlike was posted above, most people I know, myself included, do keep LoD on 4 at all times. I still do appreciate well made LODs, however. Because while the 4 is a standard pretty much, some creators manage to make such bad lods that their stuff breaks from just a bit of zooming out. 2-3m and it already shows some textured shadows under pieces that have vanished. Good example would be one fairly popular furniture/decor store starting with N. Many lovely looking pieces there, but LODs are just beyond terrible on 3/4 of their releases, so even indoor furniture/decor is unusable.

I'd say it's more about the body addons and mods than the boobs size. While there are some of them available for other bodies, Lara(x) included, like maze thighs, they tend to look very weird on thin bodies. I'm not a big fan of squish effect myself, but it definitely looks much better on Reborn than it does on Lara(x). Then there are official mods that actually have support of big clothing creators, juicy boobs and rolls, and waifus. Alternatives for Lara (not sure about X version yet, not really following it at all) do exist, but there's nearly zero clothings for them. Legacy just made making mods for their body useless in 2022 when they forbid creators to release dev kits for those mods (except ones that were released before this), making them pretty much a waste of time to make. And released no mods themselves. Reborn is a fun body to play with, due to numerous mods, being mod itself, and enormous support by all kinds of creators. And, well, shape/aesthetics are just preferences in the end, that's too personal to really try and figure or argue about. For example some people are happy about LaraX's improvements and changes, which have definitely happened, but I see it and think: "Nope, do not like it one bit, and would never buy it these days, it's the same old Maitreya I've got tired of in 2020 when I swapped to Legacy (and to Reborn in 2023)."

I keep original boxes/unpackers as a backup in well organized backups folder. Because you never know when some creator will decide to leave SL (and they can manually take their items down making them impossible to redelivery anymore) or a delivery system going to break. There's probably a few of those backups/boxes I could delete now, mostly with the old clothing that never got an update for any newer bodies than maitreya/freya/slink from back then, but not too much as I've been deleting them and some things actually got updated, in which cases I've replaced the backup boxes with a new versions. But unpacked things and stuff that I know I would never use is an instant deletion for me. I've deleted all old standard sized clothing I had before mesh bodies became a thing, and just about everything else from there. Same goes for stuff that I just won't ever use, for example darker skintones as "it's not me", and just some stuff I don't like anymore or that got replaced by better items/creations through the years.

Reborn has some arm mods, although I would guess they are not compatible with plenty of clothing. Not quite what I'd use myself, but I've seen both in-world and from a quick glance they did look fine, especially the 2nd ones despite their name. 1st: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Ebody-Reborn-Muscle-Arms/24039866 2nd: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/kuromori-stiff-masturbation-arms/25484953

Expectations are fine to have, and I would guess most people who are familiar with weekend sales have them on the realistic side. You/I/they are not getting Deadwool quality clothing (just using it as an example of very quality stuff that never does weekend sales) on such sales. And the, let's call it, "lesser quality" items are often already in the "never sell" category. Weekend sales, combined with some updates (still work to rig for such an update. of course, but usually not nearly as much as the new item with many sizes) are a good way to give some items that would just collect virtual dust forever a second life (pun intended). Same goes for some texture refreshes. Then there is a whole lot of creators and merchants (those who don't do own mesh, animations, textures or anything, and just repack stuff they bought elsewhere) whose releases pretty much aimed at such weekend sales from the very start. I've posted about this years ago. There's absolutely no way something mediocre, both look and rigging wise, split to 3 or even 4 pieces sells normally for a 300/piece on a regular event, when there are better alternatives. But the weekend sales where it's "just 300 for the whole thing"? Yeah, it does sell then. Of course there are actually a few top quality creators that join such sales every now and then, usually not very often, and then it's exactly what been mentioned before - for the exposure. But the "lag" between the event release and the weekend price release in such cases is often very very long, years sometimes. And in this case I think it's also totally valid to throw in something older so new customers might find their stores. As much as I shop, and I do shop way too much, I still find some new creators/stores through regular events and (much more rarely) weekend sales.

I think it's safe to assume that as there has been zero featured and "blogger network" news posted since February 23rd. I'm not sure if it's related in any way, and perhaps it's just something broke on their end, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were more departures from LL along with the ones that have been discussed in the other topic here.

It's actually not doing super amazing considering it's a free update. There's 6k unique users detected with it ( a bit more with petitex). For the last 90d it has 4.5k new entries, but original Lara has negative 1.6k users for the same time frame, and assuming most of those users swapped to X instead it's a similar growth to what OG Lara had. Reborn in the same 90d has almost 4.9k new detections. Total seen number - Lara will remain untouched for a few more years (150k, 2nd being Reborn now with 35k), most likely 5+, but it has all the entries from people who never log anymore for years, so it's a very bad indicator. BB site had a useful last 24h data, but it's broke recently, but before it did it usually had around 7k Lara 5.3 (some more with 5.2 and really old ones like 4.1), 5k Reborns and only 1k LaraX.

Thanks for the update on it. I was pretty sure they'd try to go for this niche now too. Maybe a skin fair release unless they'd want to run their own Legacy Spring event again this year. I wonder how this one will do, though. Back when Legacy was released it just hit that perfect window when people wanted something more than Maitreya, but Slink HG "wasn't it", and Belleza bodies were semi-abandoned, so combined with their very pushy PR and buying out creators who were "thrilled about it" they've managed to squeeze into the market and had their comfortable 2nd spot until Reborn got as popular as it is now. These days.. not so much. Failed GenX bodies is a good example of "not being needed or wanted". Now Belleza never had a good presentation, so this one will probably do better. Maybe if they do this 50% off for the users of other bodies campaign again that they did last year, or even 50% off for the Legacy users. Because if it'll be 5k, and with nearly no clothing and their terrible no-mods/addons policy in place, I don't see people rushing to buy it.

I'm personally more bothered of having to scroll through all those endless repeats whenever I check weekend sales sometimes, than a little increase in price. There's a number of stores on those lists/events that seem to cycle same few items for years at this point. I can't really imagine they even make the entry fee back at this point (and if you check their locations they are always empty or nearly empty), but being friends with event owners helps in some of those cases.

Only lifetime premium if someone got one last year. But there's a script functionality to check for that if someone is being nosy. --- As for the hiding account age, nope, can't relate to it. Perhaps because I don't really do online romance/relations and never did, but can't say I care if someone have been around for 15+ years and is probably in their late 30s at best, probably much older. If anything, when it comes to times I engage in RP, I do prefer people who has been around for sometime to one week old throwaway accounts. They usually (not always, of course), take things more seriously.

They've added 20 new non gimmicky names in early January, though. And as with usual holidays names when these will rotate out a bit after Valetine's they are going to get replaced by normal ones. I've actually liked a few of January's batch. Not enough to change one I've picked in 2020, but some usable ones there, for my tastes anyway.

It especially won't be a performance hit because those heads are likely not going to be popular unless they are going to do some crazy promotions with those. Like free/nearly free heads. Going EvoX didn't help Catwa at all, last time I checked that last release of theirs with EvoX had around 225 entries on the worn heads list after over 3 months since its release. And if you don't see something around at all, then no performance hit even if it's terribly made. /s

And what's worse it also has a snowball effect. Because it's being exploited by, let's call them "shady creators", that tend to flood MP with their garbage which is often are just stolen/bought 3D models from the usual few 3D models sites, or it's those FP resellers that tend to list hundreds items at once every few days, it starts to affect legitimate creators sales. I barely use/buy anything on MP for many years, but still check it now and then. And recently I've seen a few creators that I consider good changing their MP listings to fit the new favored algorithms where listings and descripting got rid of actual product names and all named something like "maitreya legacy reborn lingerie" for example about one creator that makes one release a month at best for the Kinky monthly event (often a lot less). I know she doesn't want it, we had a talk before a few times, she always cares about her work and does her best with every release. But can't really blame her for trying to still sell something on the MP either, and if the only way to do so these days is to join the system instead of trying to fight against it... well, that's pretty sad, but it's a reality. MP's search was already awful before, but with changes LL made last year it's worse than ever now, even if some people here on the forums keep trying to defend it. It is usable still, yes, and the options on the left side help, boolean search is also there. But those extra options should be an addition to already easy to use and working search, not a requirement that makes the search slightly more tolerable.

It's Genus with their "4k" all over again probably, which is, well, dead already, aside of a few release window skins. But maybe LAQ didn't botch the seams/connections between textures at least. The name/marketing part of it, though, is awful. Looking forward to another niche/small creator to come with something like "8K mega ultra PBR enabled superior next gen HD" next.

My only guess if when people make some money in SL already, perhaps? Creators and such. To donate directly they'd have to cash out which has the same conversion problem, and also needs a Tilia account setup on top of it, which people who just create for fun might not have/want.

I'd also add hair section in worn alpha layer to make sure it never show up regardless of those style settings. It's actually enough to eliminate all of the system hair based issues. There's some very sparse content where hair alpha section must be unchecked, though, like the Aii&Ego's BoM hairstyles, but aside of those rare examples it doesn't get on the way at all.

Rowan already explained the most, but I want to add that there's a known issue with all legacy 1.6 bodies, male and female. If you hide hands or feet via HUD, then show them back and/or reset alpha, fingernails and toenails do not show back. The only way to make them visible again is via chat commands. If hands/feet are hidden via auto-alpha script then they seem to restore back with the nails, though. It has been a known issue since last June at least, and even their welcome box with some useful stuff includes a few pre-made gestures (with chat commands) for those who doesn't know how to make their own. They sure do take their sweet time to fix this. While not a "gamebreaking" bug it's a rather annoying issue that should have been hotfixed in 1.6.1 update right away.

It absolutely does not requre media on to be enabled, especially after 1.5+ update after they added the chat commands. You can enable BoM with said chat command and forget this media section exists. Alpha and tab with materials/hand poses never needed media in the first place. Speaking from experience, I have media, voice and sounds disabled in SL pretty much since joinining in 2012. But yeah, it's not different from media streams that are all over the place. IP address they'd get would be one from the pool of my ISP with 1.5m total (it's a big ISP) IPs. I'm around 2k kms away from our capital and my IP points there currently, just like the rest of those 1.5m IPs.

Ad for chainmail is from 2021 (and it hasn't changed since then I believe, sadly rigs haven't, too, so no reborn size), so can't be their hair as those are quite a bit newer. I'd guess Raven Bell too, but don't see this exact style on their flickr.

Of course they don't. They want to provide something not awful enough so potential new users won't alt+f4 in a second after they see themselves in-world. I'd argue that it still might be the case, but at least it's not classic avatars level of awful. After that those who stick around are encouraged to upgrade to something better and pretty, and become part of the existing mesh bodies/heads/clothing ecosystem. Those people who were writing on this very forum how some mesh bodies/heads creators might get all upset when "NUX" bodies are out were rather delusion if put it mildly. It's the exact same path many F2P mmorpgs (and games in general) take. While free options are there, the paid ones are always better/faster/fancier. E.g. a "super cool dragon mount" vs the default "slow basic horse" one.

LittleFish has the best fitting ones probably. Voluptas Virtualis had some too with more unique shape/look, but nowhere as close fit as LF's. But if you wanted something interactive with a lot of functions, then I have no idea.

I'm no bigger fan of those free genus clones than you are, but to be fair it's often the case with other heads too. I also tend to facepalm when someone with 100% default shaped 2016 Catya head with default skin and all those grimaces, I mean animations, turned on have a pick long rant in their profile how they've "made an effort and so should you". It wasn't good looking in 2016 on release, and over 7 years later compared to other options, including those gift heads by Lelutka it's just... the classic/senra/free genus level of awful, except it wasn't even free. Whatever works for them, I suppose, as long as they are happy, but it sure is not pretty.

Surveys are the worst way. Too easy to game and the loud minority without access to nice clothes loves to do that. There was a lot of noise from already abandoned Freya users for years, too. But that's really all it was - the noise, numbers weren't there to support it. I personally don't know a single person wearing it, but quite a few who swapped from Freya to something else and wouldn't touch Belleza with a long stick now. And for over a year it's out I can probably count on fingers the times I've seen anyone using it. I would guess creators still try to support it or the older Belleza bodies a bit more if it weren't for the body mods that got so popular in the last couple of years. But now when Waifus approach 1st spot as the most seen/used mods, and there's a lot more of them, it makes more sense to make an extra rig for those mods, than to something old or just not used. Daily stats by bonniebots also reflect it very well. Last time I've checked there was around 200 Freya users, 110-ish GenX users (all combined), and almost 1.5k of waifus addon alone. If anything it's a miracle GenX get at least what it does clothing wise. If it weren't for the Belleza name, that is still recognizeable, it would be same situation as with Kalhene or Tonic bodies, e.g. nearly zero content for it that isn't FP meshes retextures.

Saw the thread and since my friend is into that stuff we gave it a quick test. No script errors on SLS or either of 4 RCs, shows 4% memory free on each. That's the default/untouched copy of this AO, so try a fresh one if you haven't already. If it's not that, then hard to say, maybe some regions are just not doing well?

They color together with the fingernails.