Chic at Ebbe's Place

I have noted something over the last months. Thinking that it might have just been a "summer slow season" effect, I pushed the idea aside. But it is Fall now; school is back in session, vacations mostly over -- time to get back to work.

And you know what? The forums are dead. Yes, of course there are the always present ads for land sales and rentals and "hostess" and dancer jobs, but there is very (VERY) little real knowledge being traded.

A year or so ago the mesh forum and the texture forum were alive with problems, questions and answers -- many of them mine :D. While I have worked out most of my mesh making issues, you would think others would be coming in and taking my place. And for awhile they did.

The activity downturn seemed to coincide roughly with the New World announcement. Now why would that be?

I can only come up with one answer. New folks thinking about coming into Second Life to make their mark in mesh or some other creation area may be waiting to see what the differences will be in the next generation world. That makes sense really. Why spend time and energy investing in a platform that is being replaced.  Hence the quiet.



We don't actually need more creators; we definitely have plenty in most areas. 

Or do we?

What are we missing? Folks to make clothes for all the newly arrived mesh avatar bodies for one thing. With The Mesh Project, Slink and Belleza all on the bandwagon for gals and Tellaq (and perhaps others) out there for the boys, we can all look pretty damn good naked. And I hear that the Belleza body especially works well with regular mesh clothes.TMP and Tellaq are not in the clothed camp yet. Slink works "sometimes".

It seems pretty obvious that the new SL will be mesh based (not in the legacy format); we are so obviously heading in that direction even is SL 1.0.  If there are new folks thinking about coming in, it is unlikely that they are the designers to fill this gap. By now the people that were interested in creation for creation's sake are here -- more than a decade gave them plenty of time to join in the party.

There must be new kids on the block looking to become part of the content creator pool, but I am guessing that they are in that workshop category, not original creators. I HAVE seen posts asking how to use AO maps on purchased mesh for example.

While the forums are not a definitive guideline on what is happening with the creator pool, it is a pulse of a trend. Happily, the top original creators seem to be in a frantic pace to keep up with all their sales opportunities giving us plenty of wonderful goods to purchase.