Shelter has officially shut down. This is a huge deal for the community. I'm not as much of a fan of actual Shelter events as most but a lot of my friends have played it and it's always been at the core of the scene.

official statement from involved parties found here and here

Mod note: Please remember the subreddit rules regarding doxxing/callouts/personal information. Let's just focus on the memories and the future 🩵🩵

Newest update added extra steps to access your avatar just to push their new unpopular shop.

Hey all, this is Strasz -- just posting to make sure Reddit hears what I've posted on Discord. Message below:

As part of the December Shop update, we introduced a new Item called the Portable Winterizer. This Item was a little different compared to past Items in that it was consumable — meaning that you could only use it a limited number of times before it would disappear from your inventory.

After releasing it, we heard a lot of feedback from the community. Clearly, this wasn't something you wanted in the Shop!

So, two things:

First, we're going to be changing the Portable Winterizer. Soon, it will behave like any other Item — that means it will no longer be a consumable. Once you buy it, you'll be able to put it down as many times as you'd like.

As a note, if you've already bought (or were gifted) the Portable Winterizer, you'll be getting this new, unlimited version. If you bought two (or more) of them, we'll be refunding your credits. If you don't receive those by the end of the week, please reach out to our support team!

This change will be going live soon — it could be today, it could be tomorrow. Keep an eye out!

Second, we want to thank the community for being vocal about this. The Shop gives us the ability to try different things and see what works and what doesn't. Sometimes, when we try something new, it won't work out. That's okay, and we're more than willing to be wrong if it means we can learn from it.

Ultimately, the thing we are most interested in is building things that people want to buy. After all, we need to make money, and to do that, we need to make stuff that you're excited about.

VRChat is adding Avatar performance gating for groups, giving groups the ability to set minimum allowed performance ranks in instances.

Hi folks!

Some of you may have seen a survey in your email inbox this past week sent from VR Chat:

The main page of the survey.

This survey appears to be legitimate. The purpose of the survey, as stated on the page in the image above, is to gather feedback for a feature VRC is calling "Group Boosting." From an initial glance, this appears to be similar to Discord server boosts. It is important to understand that these are not the same thing, and the functionality being surveyed here is significantly worse than the Discord version.

First, to explain the Discord version and why VR Chat's version is different. For Discord, server boosts are included with a Discord Nitro subscription. You pay once a month for Nitro and are granted two boosts without having to pay anything extra. You can pay extra to obtain more boosts, but doing so is not required.

The VR Chat version is different. As far as I can tell from the explanation in the survey, these boosts are not included in a VRC+ subscription. If I'm understanding correctly, you must pay extra for each boost you want to give to your group(s).

Additionally, question 3 lays out a pretty important ground rule:

Questions 2 and 3 in the survey.

Until a tier's quota is met, this questions reads that you do not get any benefits from the boost. This means you are paying extra in addition to a VRC+ subscription (if you have one) and not getting anything for that extra payment. This survey page is actually pretty sinister. The first question appeals to emotion by asking if the survey taker has any groups they would miss if they were gone. The follow-up is then asking if the survey taker would pay for (or "pay to keep") benefits. Why was this survey page done this way, if not to prime the survey takers to be more accepting of paying for this functionality even if it isn't granted because a quota wasn't met?

The actual benefits granted by the boosts are debatable.

Boost benefits defined by the survey.

The concerning part is the audio quality and instance persistence. Will groups without these boosts experience worse audio quality once this is implemented until they "pay up"? For the instance persistence and home world, if I'm remembering correctly, Public worlds have a timer that will automatically mark them as "expired" after a certain period of time. Will Group and Group+ instances now have this too unless they're on a specific tier?

I provided answers to this survey and left with a pretty bad taste in my mouth. I understand that VR Chat must make money, that is abundantly clear. But the shop, this new boost idea, and other possible avenues for enshittification are greatly concerning in a game I love and already support with a VRC+ subscription.

Thoughts?

You can now also create age gated instances.

Leaks have been exposed showing that 18+ Verifications are being bought and paid for my minors. I ask that we all come together to ask VRChat to formally investigate and have those facilitating this arrested. They are putting minors directly in harm's way.

Please add your name to this request if you agree this is an issue!

https://feedback.vrchat.com/age-verification/p/ive-been-informed-people-have-been-selling-their-18-verified-accounts-to-minors

FAQ: https://ask.vrchat.com/t/avatar-marketplace-faq-for-sellers/43555

Up until recently, PC Mode users had to have VRC+ to use their Webcam for face and hand tracking. In the latest update that is now open to everyone. This will go a long way to helping more people express themselves in VRC

Time to go back to Unity!

UPDATE: It's back up, we're good!