Oh no... They found us...

There's so many of you! Since the kickoff of the Fashion Jam things have started getting a little more active around here. For example, in just the last week we've had over 200 people create their first character, which is more than we'd ever had in the entire month prior! While our little (and we do mean little) server is handling the load relatively well, there are a few things about our designs that are changing as we scale. The first is our welcome posts, which were fun when we had maybe a dozen people to greet with some single days having 50+ new characters joining, it was verging toward annoying. We may still return the single-announcements in some other form soon, but we felt it wasn't right to fit them all on the main timeline. Now every user that signs up will have a final step where they themselves can announce their character, and we'll still be greeting plenty of newcomers ourselves through a single daily post that gathers everyone new together in a group shot like this: Second, with so many more newcomers we're getting more reports of edge cases, little tweaks, and rediscovery of rather dusty "old" features that need some tune-up. So, while we've got some new experiences to reveal today, we're going to spend a bit more time focusing on tuning up the whole starship so we can be sure things are running well for everyone as our journeys continue. Finally, we're working on a new portal for Experiences which are expanding way faster than we expected with multiple developers working on new games and app compatibility for your rpg.actor characters. We'll have more to announce about that soon, as well as our submission process for being a featured experience, but for now we're focused on just seeing everything that everyone makes! Cataloguing Your Collections Along with a ton of new items for the Sprite Generator (handbags, handhelds, hairstyles, and more!) we've been experimenting with special item unlocks through different methods. Some have been based on using your Atmosphere Account on other places like blento.app or grain.social, or even having the account hosted on another service from Bluesky like eurosky.social. We've had some fun rewarding silly replies to posts asking for cookies, and even reserved items for special guests and special drops for our earliest users. We've added some notifications and a little modal whenever you unlock a new item, all of which is accessible in your profile page in a new message inbox. You'll see a red notification badge attached to your name in the header whenever you've got something new to claim. Just open it and hit Add to Inventory and it'll be yours to wear whenever you like! Other creators have also started their own distributions using the powers of their Creator Account to make new items and give them away. With all of these new custom wardrobe items we've made two new tools to help you discover, collect, and explore them all. To help find new items, we've created a special Item Claims Feed that automatically recognizes when gift links are dropped online, and updates with our own special collection opportunities. Pin it and check daily for new items you'll be able to grab. Then, we've added a new Item Catalogue which is a lot like our Character Compendium but for all the new inventory items, letting you search and see all of what exists, who created them, who's giving them away, and who's holding or wearing them. Browsing it is a great way to discover new items that you've maybe never seen before! We're also announcing new traits for the Sprite Generator as they're added through some special format posts that also have their own New Traits Feed, so you can see the latest additions and check if there's anything you want to try on your character. Stream Pets to Keep You Company Over the week or so folks have been using rpg.actor to create all sorts of new experiences using them. One of the more popular ones was Stream Pets by @flo-bit.dev which is a new stream.place native overlay for OBS that integrates any characters from your chatters, and puts them on screen with fun !commands that let them act. The original version worked rather well and people enjoyed it, but it was a bit technical to use and the fallback for people who didn't have rpg.actor characters saw some primitive critters that didn't vibe well with the pixelart of the sprites. So, to help with the project we've added an official Stream Pets tool that incorporates the original functionality with a nice user interface, and also offers new fallback characters that are themselves whole actors: You can use the system today for your streams, and see all your viewers and their characters walking around while you broadcast. The Origins of Minecraft Steve Despite being owned by one of the world's jumbo megacorps, Minecraft remains one of the most interoperable and user-manageable games out there. With so many players having their own custom skins attached to their publicly accessible Mojang Account (and those skins being scaled pixel art) it turned out rather easy to convert a Minecraft skin into a working rpg.actor character sprite with a single script. So, now you can visit rpg.actor/minecraft and enter your Mojang Account name or UUID and instantly get a working sprite you can save directly to your rpg.actor records. One funny extra tidbit that came out of this was that it prompted us to extend the actor.rpg.sprite records with a new "origin" value which is not quite hard validated yet, but is giving us a look into the future of where sprite sourcing might head. Right now we're using it to designate which sprites are from Minecraft for some goofy UI elements, but there are many potential uses for such designations in the future. We'll wait and see how other developers think to use it, but as future sprite generators come into play they could easily stamp themselves as origin source on any of these records for a number of worthwhile reasons. Fashion Jam Continues! Our seasonal Fashion Jam is still ongoing and we've had our first Fashionista Friday completed and more to come weekly! Contrats to @goose.art for winning it (and racking up a ton of adoration on the styleboard). It definitely seems like those who take the time to customize their sprite with our Wardrobe Painter are getting some extra love on the runway. Don't forget to get yourself down to Fashionista Runway and record your own walk, and see who's hosting the day's showcase. We've got a ton of great characters now ready to show off your best looks, and don't forget to follow @fashionista.rpg.actor for her daily gossip. More Ahead... There's still more coming from our team and everyone else using the rpg.actor systems, and we're gearing up for another major event next month. So, get yourself ready, get your character equipped well, and enjoy everything that this community has to offer!