I was all prepared to do a follow up on my first blog post about the free TMP male mesh body, which I entitled ‘The Underwear Model’. I had put together a new look with a good quality system skin for the head, a bodacious hairstyle from Dura and a penis from Aeros , because I really don’t want to look at one of those freebie willies that seem to have been nicked from a body that’s been dead for a while. For eyes I went with a pair of Vermeer mesh eyes in a hazel tone from No Shirt Sherlock, because blue eyes would have been too evident(ly) dear Watson! I even found a free simple animation override on Marketplace.
Then someone told me that they had been up to The Shops and the free body was no longer available. He could see only the ones you had to pay for, ranging from the rather useless Standard, to the not so great Basic and of course the only one you really wanted, the Deluxe Body with all the bells and much needed whistles. Well no, actually you still need to get the whistle from somewhere else with that body, as mentioned earlier. I double checked and indeed it was gone, but I returned to The Shops in the evening and lo and behold, the Deluxe body and mesh heads have tumbled down from their hefty 5000 L$ price tag to just 500! Even crazier is that the entire TMP clothing line from their “Boutique” is now available for free.
This seems highly suspicious. Time and time again I have read that TMP operates outside of the Second Life grid, using their own servers. It has been pointed out that if those servers were to go down, the TMP body would become useless or you would be stuck in whatever skin you applied to it last and the same goes for the TMP clothing line. This extreme discount feels like a last ditch attempt to grab just a few more crumbs from unwitting customers before TMP will be pulling the plug. I don’t feel comfortable making such crass allegations, but what ARE we to think? Perhaps, for those that really still want to use the body now and again, it might be wise to store some back up copies in their inventory with different skins applied to each and repeat this exercise with whatever TMP clothing and textures they may have. I don’t know if that will make a difference, but as I always say: better shave than snorry (this joke only works for people that understand Dutch). I even wonder if the alpha hud would still work if their servers went down.
Naturally I did grab a whole bunch of textures for the TMP clothing, because even if they stop working soon, it’s free stuff innit though? This is just a very, very, very small selection of the different combinations I could create with what I picked up today. The (rather) low baggy pants work very nicely with Noche’s metallic thong and crop top, which are some of their last items that still supported the TMP body before it was dropped. Overall support for this body has been really weird of late. Sometimes you will find a TMP size version were you didn’t expect it and visa versa, brands that used to support TMP, took that size out of their range. So in short, what the acrobatic chandelier swinging f*ck is eating TMP?
Billy Beaverhausen 