if you can build up a small portfolio, i think both toho and coda might consider taking you on? though it's possible that they still might refuse, since coders aren't entirely needed right now.

an important thing to note is that we don't make enough money to do salaries. hence why artists work on a commission basis. i'm not sure if this is true for coders, mind you, i'd have to ask coda on that topic.

also, yeah, voltra does feel really goddamn cliquey now that you've mentioned it, Kaderin. it doesn't help that one of the main ways to gain volts would be to spam in a thread on The Undercurrent.

Seems it's always been cliquey then
I joined probably a few months after it opened.
Once in a while (every 6-12 months) I pop in...idk just to see if anyone's cared enough to message me? But I haven't been active on there in a very long time.

(Logged in just to see if my memory was right and yeah. I joined in 2017, probably shortly after the site was fully opened and quit about a year later in 2018.)

And I could understand it being cliquey if it had been a few years before I'd joined or something because by then people would have had gotten some pretty solid friend groups...but it was a new site. XP

Admittedly, my very first post there wasn't exactly positive as I made it pretty clear that I wasn't exactly thrilled with the avatar style and as good as said I was only joining so a friend would stop bugging me about it...so that probably didn't help any.

But then they also had to suddenly shut down the site for a couple months that first year too (I don't remember exactly why, but if I were more ambitious I could dig it up), which only solidified my negative feeling toward Voltra tbh.

That's sad and boring. Boring because you don't get to have fun because no one wants to interact with you, and sad because you wanna have fun with others but are shunned by the crowd. At least you didn't torture yourself and continued to stay and get ignored, though on the flip side, if you stayed, people might start taking a liking to you. It's not much of a loss, though.

Looking at your latest post, I remember seeing a thread like that on Voltra... interesting. I did make an alt account, but uh... I don't really use it. Not supposed to anyways since well, ya know... ban evasion. I don't even remember the username XD

Voltra has a black market?? o_O Damn....

That's what I've gathered, but I may have misread what the rumour mill had said.

Yikes. Now I'm even less interested in logging into Voltra. >_> (I also feel bad for donating to them >:C )

that's fucking wild.
none of the other avi sites i've been faffing around on have anything of the sort.

I mean, like I said, I may have misread or misinterpreted. At best, the items they sell are questionable.

Well, I'll still be skeptical about them for now :x

This thread gives my toxic little heart much joy right now.

How come?

To me Avatar sites and online social media forums have evolved into VRchat where you can know physically just take equip avatars and talk to people.

Individual forums are sort of just used for dedicated sites to communicate with people, but most people prefer to go over to reddit, twitter or facebook.

Honestly the role of avatar creation and items makes more sense now to exist in the 3D space. I can't really think of any options out there to truly customize a 3D avatar that you can then easily import to VR hangout sites. It's still new tech but I think this is just the evolution and step forward. And have for a long time.

But there is still a forum aspect of having discussion, a certain etiquette of bring up topics in VR spaces that is lost. But then gets covered by Reddit, and there is no real combination of the two.

A kill switch isn't all that rare. It IS unethical, yes, but it's also kind of common among freelance developers. It's considered a defense against getting screwed over -- if you do work on a contract but you don't trust your employer, the kill switch gives you leverage. If they don't pay you, they don't get to keep the code. What are they going to do, sue you? They were so cheap that they wouldn't pay a developer. A lawyer is going to cost way more.

Of course, where it turns from merely unethical to actively criminal is when the developer uses it for extortion.

theoretically, we could get an influx of people if we advertized some, given that VRChat is implementing anticheat that runs on a kernel level.

of course, that assumes that people still use forums or know how to use forum software, along with teaching them how to use the avatar portions of the site, given that we don't use 3d models that you can just get from an in-game browser.

And now Pantheon just announced it is shutting down. I liked it there even though I mostly lurked.

Huh. Why? Just not enough traffic? They’re not all that old, though.

Yeah they said they don't have money to pay the servers :< I'm so glad Toho has a real life job not related to avatar forums |D
Gaia needs money to get anything, Solia might be back with NFTs (??), Pantheon is dead, Voltra has the aforementioned issues...

Also I would do avatar contests for a 5 aurum prize

Welp, it looks like I gotta get in contact with a certian someone there as I owe them a pic. Actually, two people.

can confirm. the reason why i fundamentally couldn't take any payment from pantheon even though they did offer to pay me was bc i was worried abt the budget.

unfortunately, it has been confirmed in the staff chat.

on the plus side, i might be able to retool a bunch of concepts i did for the site.

Avatar sites are VR Chat games are two different categories at the end of the day. One is a forum the other is a open game you can play on vr or on desktop.

The people leaving VRchat will be going to Neos or Chillout.

Edit:
Gaia is in this weird state of original developers coming back to a cow that was milked for all it's worth. Everyone left and moved onto new communities via reddit, discord and so on. Gaia sort of exists with all these terrible monetization practices they added in the last 10 years that they just won't abandoned because they need money.

Everything and it's code has became antiquated so they needed to update it. Now it just sort of exists as a former shell of itself with new members and some old members sort of just making a living there with a few thousand members.

Other sites are gone because of people leaving, was never able to attract an audience and activity just died down or money stopped.

Trisphee is relatively asleep now and what brought it back was the artist Glitch who came in and started single handedly working on items on the site. And when she unfortunately passed away so did the site. Only thing probably keeping Trisphee alive is Toho still footing the bill.

As for advertising Trisphee, I remember someone put money on Facebook ad for Trisphee to test it out for a second and I saw it. But I truly wonder if that ad actually reached out to anyone who wasn't already going onto the site.

i'd consider them to be more or less similar things tbh, just one is a bit more older than the other, and uses an older communication medium.

Yeah, just saw the announcement on Pantheon. :( Of all the times to return to a forum, but it is what it is.

I'm just thankful Trisphee is still up. I prefer this community over Gaia and Voltra(though I lurk both xD )

same hat. i don't rlly post on gaia. the chance machines irk me in the wrong way tbh.

VRChat is also sending cease-and-desist messages to private servers, is complaining about hackers harassing users, and is hiring someone to implement an in-app marketplace.

I kinda get the feeling it might be seeing troubles in its future.

hoo boy.
i was thinking abt getting into rec room but like. that also has EAC and a marketplace.

I think Solia will be stupid to touch NFTs..

Neopets tried that a few months back and got really bad backlash from their user base over it.

Use to remember a few sites having private servers.. I never went on them but know a few friends that did, really wasn't nothing special tbh.

haha, I honestly wouldn't expect to be paid, any experience would be lovely. It's the only way you get anywhere in the coding/gaming industry if you have the experience. Spoke to a good friend who like me, doesn't have the professional experience and no where wants to give us the experience cause we're past of the age to have an internship, so it's very Catch 22 unless you get very lucky and a company is willing to train you to give you the experience.

Ah, that makes sense, but then why hand the code over in the first place? I think most coders would want payment first. :p or no code, or maybe it's because I'm old fashioned?

Yes, Lancer has recently returned back to Gaia. I really only frequent a few forums on there since most of my friends have left, which I don't blame them. Most have jobs now, married, etc.

I go on to do my avatars up..
https://a1cdn.gaiaonline.com/dress-u...269742_6.00_11 isn't she pretty..
https://a1cdn.gaiaonline.com/dress-u...805636_6.00_01
https://a1cdn.gaiaonline.com/dress-u...091402_6.00_00 only oc based char.. lol..

Wow sad news about Patheon. I don't think I joined there, but it always sucks when a baby site falls. (I still measure baby sites to Gaia)

Hearing about Lancer returning to Gaia is interesting. But, still no intentions of ever going back there.

Not one I ever had interest in tbh.. I kind of stopped joining new avatar sites a few years back, I did join a few baby sites to see if I could get into community, etc but to be honest, I'm not huge on speaking with folks unless I know them from another site. Was pretty bad returning back to a game after 2 years and most folks were new cause quite a few servers had merged during my time away. Luckily my ingame husband was the leader and understood that it was probably daunting to return and everyone you knew was gone, and most of the newer folks, after taking over as guild leader, allowed me time to get to know them.

I didn't even know he left but then, I stopped logging on Gaia shortly after 2010 or 2011.. folks keep saying you have a 2009 account but your Zomg rings are not maxed out. Hm.. folks do end up taking breaks from sites you know. and pretty sure the two other avatars, the accounts were made even earlier.. believe Auroraah *the OC avatar one* was made around 2003 or 2004 and has a few Zomg rings but I never got into the game till I got the 2009 account.

I stopped playing Neopets for a good number of years till a friend asked if I played, lol. Sometimes I get very scatter brained and might have an account somewhere and it's only when someone asks if I play there, then it's like, oh yea, my username is.. now remembering the information to log on is another story..

yeah, i'm always forgetting passwords. speaking of, i really need to update the password for this account since it has been breached on like. neopets, wattpad and ffnet, i think? and i'm still using a very insecure password that would have been top-notch security in like. 2008.

I'm stealing it as you type. lol. Ya right.

Yea, Neopets was breached like three times.. 2013, 2016 and just recently.

I have the 2013/2016 breach list for there, was hoping I would find out what my og email for my accounts was but cause GoVoltronForce/Cybunnyhugs was self frozen, those accounts aren't listed. but luckily the account I am looking to get the info is there, the friend quit but the pets were ones gifted by me, kind of would like the chance of deciding their fate then the person that got the account in the hack.

I bet he will. I know a few sites have that had issue where past owners have let them go to ruin, can understand interests change, can't afford to put the work in maintaining the site, need new equipment..

and yes.. I'm bad with passwords myself. but most sites, there's not really anything to take. think only accounts that have anything worthy of stealing is neopets and too many folks know I wouldn't give Fetti away, etc. Took me ten years to finally get my baby and he's staying on my account till Neopets goes boom.

I only heard about it in 2017ish. Luckily the email attached to my current accounts was inaccessible. Yahoo still won't let it purge, lol..

I agree. I remember hunting for hours to find the colours he wanted. Just glad never gave him any unconverted pets and know the pets that were once on the account which is funny, anything before 2015, they don't say they have the info yet if someone lists the pet on a ticket.. some of tnts ways is very confusing.

Probably not a lot of people will want to handle an avatar site, it's a huge challenge and I hope he does. A lot of items are so rare to find so be nice if they do something to get more copies out in the market esp with a large user base, doesn't make sense that tons of items never have at least one copy up for sale and even if they do, the price is awful.

neopets is doing nfts these days. can't say i'm surprised that they've gone downhill, even wildworks (the devs behind animal jam, a pro-nature game) is doing NFTs despite the discontentment, and they shelved fer.al to clone the game into cinder, which is primarily an NFT thing.

I am not sure if Neopets plans to release anymore NFTs or not but the ones sold in late Spring/early Summer were not the best and as many users said, you were paying all that crypto for just an image which was not even yours in the end. Would rather purchase something that you could get in the mail as a real item over something digital.

Even through I am working on earning crypto, I wouldn't of wasted any of it on those.

And yes, Neopets has been going downhill for years. If instead of deleting names and unconverted pets, taking them and putting them up for sale over the black market getting hold of them, tnt probably would of made a killing alone or offering back in 2011, a way for users to turn any pet with unconverted art, unconverted. I would of honestly paid to have an uc rg acara if the option had been made available or the royal zafaras, lol. They did a lot of pets that had amazing unconverted art dirty.

Now they are hoping an UC Paintbrush will hopefully save the site, which I think is little too late since lots of users left after the recent breach. It seems TNT didn't learn after the last two.

As for Solia, I think what really caused their downfall since a few years back, they had to get new servers, is how rare lots of items are due to the gacha system they have. Unless multiple folks play, sometimes there's only one or two copies of the rare items in existence so folks expected high offers on them since in the end, they stopped doing where users could support ideas to be made and if you donated enough, you could get a copy of the item but think depending on the item, you had to donate around 10 - 20 usd for a guaranteed copy.

It also didn't help that Solia gave people a vote of whether or not they could start over with the new system where you would lose almost everything. And then redo the system anyway despite them being against it. Then gaslighting everyone about the whole situation.

Yes, I remember some items had bugs.. one of my poses disappeared from my invo after trying to use it.. don't remember it ever being fixed either.

and I could understand. Folks paid tons of money over the years to get the items, would be a slap in the face if you delete someone's whole invo and expect them to donate again to regain the items that were rightfully theirs from the start. I could understand if an account has been sitting for a year or two without the user logging on, then delete the account and have the items be able to go back into the economy..

but I think every avatar site ends up that way, there will always be items that will be unachievable, usually the ones from the first few months, etc when the user base is small and not many of those items are circulated, mainly cause most of the users that will have those items, would of quit and just left the items in their invo cause no one else wanted them or weren't worth the effort to sell.

Remember Subeta has recently started bringing back retired event items and allowing users the chance of getting item via quests since so many of the past event items like plushies, etc are so rare to find and lots of users are actively hunting for them. Was how I got some of the items for my pets that had certain themes, otherwise would of been a nightmare saving up to get those items.

They also have a thing that during each month, you can purchase past years items as well. That way, users can achieve past items that might be rare in the marketplace which is something I think other sites should consider. It would bring income in and more copies of the items will be available, then you don't have users sitting there saying how hard questing for certain items are.

So they basically wanted people to be ok with re-paying for donation items?

Oh boy! That's an odd situation to put your users in.O.o

that sounds like very poor management.