Then and Now in SL...

[LittleMe Jewell]

For me, back in 2007:  buy, buy buy without doing any demos, but then spend many, many minutes trying to get the flexi prims on skirts to fit right (and totally avoid all those mini skirts that used tiny flaps across the crotch).  Also spend time adjusting pieces of hair - as long as it was Mod.  Shoes, thankfully back then were easy - even though our ankles looked horrid when exposed.

Then, roughly 2009, I think - mesh clothing, some of which looked nice, but "No, I do not want to change my shape for someone else's definition of small, medium, and large".  Thus I still wore a lot of flexi skirts - not to mention that they "moved".  Shoes became sculpt with feet and I had to spend forever matching my skin tone - which never gave a perfect match, hence all the shoes had some sort of ankle strap.  

Today:  Grab demos; take time to try them on (unless outfit is on a super cheap sale); note the ones that fit (though many require using alpha cuts to make it work); buy the ones that work and make an 'auto-hide' prim to go with said outfit.  Hair is a crock - the mesh ones don't move and the flexi ones are way to high CI.  Shoes are now a breeze - the one super, super, super good thing about mesh bodies. 

Some things are better, some not so much, but it is all progress.

[Dementia Obviate]

Then: It was considered a no-no or noobish to appear naked in public

Now: When you first TP into a club, everyone is naked for the first 5 minutes

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Dementia Obviate said:

Now: When you first TP into a club, everyone is naked for the first 5 minutes

And in multiple disjointed pieces  

[Dementia Obviate]

7 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

And in multiple disjointed pieces  

Then: You'd teleport and find your shoes up your butt

Now: You teleport and try to find your butt

[Marth Coberts]

3 minutes ago, Dementia Obviate said:

Then: You'd teleport and find your shoes up your butt

Now: You teleport and try to find your butt

I'd be lucky to even find my butt. For all I know I'd have a foot coming out my mouth, a hand where my butt should be, and my stomach takes place of my face, but Butt is nowhere to be found.

[Ceka Cianci]

I just have to say,even though I look back on my older days in SL as a lot of trouble shooting in one light..I still wouldn't have traded it for anything..

A lot of experience came from all that and a lot of that lead to making a lot of friends..

Heck,the reason I even knew we had a forum was because of me trying to find answers on how to fix something..

That landed me in the old,Resident Answers forum, which is pretty much this section now..

 

I get nostalgic about those  forums as well..I learned so much from those forums.. The trick was dodging Brenda's pants when she got excited..

And I still never got a ***** rating!! \o/

 

I was glancing through some of the older threads..That was a fun time..hehehehe

The old Resident answers forum, from the forum archives.

 

 

Edited August 7, 2018 by Ceka Cianci

[Ceka Cianci]

2 hours ago, Dementia Obviate said:

Then: You'd teleport and find your shoes up your butt

Now: You teleport and try to find your butt

I remember everything I had attached would end up in my crotch..

The other thing I remember is,it happening so much,that I could open my inventory and go to each folder and reattach everything in no less than 15 seconds..

 I had my inventory down pat back then..Today I get lost on what I bought 30 minutes ago..

[Tari Landar]

Head up the butt is still one of my absolute favorite tp glitches

The missing image thing, coupled with "land texture got added to your clothing layer", are my favorite texture/outfit glitches(though not necessarily related to tp-ing, lol)

I still get a good laugh when I look at pictures of them too

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

Maybe some of the differences in people's experiences comes from different preferences in avatars and clothing. Standard Sizing may have been a nightmare for tall or voluptuous avatars but the small end worked well enough for my slightly built av.

For those who want to show a good bit of boob, things have never been better for certain. The norm I see on offer in stores is a bit much for me though, so often older is a closer match for my preferences. Slink High heels look painful and awkward to me so I'm still going around in flats, boots or bare.

In the 'old' days, things often couldn't be made to fit perfectly but I could get pretty much anything I wanted to wear to be good enough. (Again, having a slightly built avatar may well have affected how close I could get and I didn't mind minor tweaks to my shape to better suit something.) If I saw something I liked the look of, I knew I could get it work even if it took some effort.

Now though, there's so much which will simply never work. If your tastes run to one of the popularly supported mesh bodies, it may well be that things are easier for you now, at least once you've got your HUDs set up just right. But if they don't, there's little which can be done.

[Coffee Pancake]

I agree with the OP's sentiment, playing dress up was easier with system bodies.

These days it's Maitreya or maybe Slink, maybe you can make things work together without clipping .. maybe you can't. Inventory full of demos to products only sold at events now passed. If you want a product as pictured, buy the fatpack.

But it is still better than the standard sizing mess, the avatar proportions were terrible, and slight variability between vendors meant nothing could be combined anyway.

[Teagan Tobias]

1 hour ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

Maybe some of the differences in people's experiences comes from different preferences in avatars and clothing. Standard Sizing may have been a nightmare for tall or voluptuous avatars but the small end worked well enough for my slightly built av.

For those who want to show a good bit of boob, things have never been better for certain. The norm I see on offer in stores is a bit much for me though, so often older is a closer match for my preferences. Slink High heels look painful and awkward to me so I'm still going around in flats, boots or bare.

In the 'old' days, things often couldn't be made to fit perfectly but I could get pretty much anything I wanted to wear to be good enough. (Again, having a slightly built avatar may well have affected how close I could get and I didn't mind minor tweaks to my shape to better suit something.) If I saw something I liked the look of, I knew I could get it work even if it took some effort.

Now though, there's so much which will simply never work. If your tastes run to one of the popularly supported mesh bodies, it may well be that things are easier for you now, at least once you've got your HUDs set up just right. But if they don't, there's little which can be done.

Bolding by me.

 

This is more to the point, it was not easy but it was doable for the most part. You did not need to ask, what avatar is that for, there was only one. And work to make things fit, lots in many cases, but you could move things, and that can't be done with mesh clothes, a really big difference.

Was the past better, NO, but you had a fighting chance to make things fit, and for me that was part of the fun.

No doubt about it, mesh is pretty, but still, very dysfunctional, with 50 (?) different bodies needing 50 different sizes you don't stand a chance of, oh pretty, buy it.

Would I like to see the past come back, over my cold dead body!

[Maryanne Solo]

I made textured clothes only for a long time and had awesome fun. I didn't understand prims/sculpties at all after I had made clothes for other games before I SL'd, so researched SL mesh thoroughly before I jumped in. My conclusions were: only buy >FITTED< mesh, not fitmesh or any other convolution of that term, which ensured my lindens were not wasted.

Consequently, I learnt 3D mesh in RL and that is where I make stuff now. I kept all my system/prim clothes but it takes many years for the connection with those items to fade. Will baked on renew my interest in those items? I'll give it a try but I doubt it. If you want to guarantee you wont be frustrated with mesh? > Fitted mesh < (specifically for your body brand) is the answer.

Bento made me go meh when I first heard of it and I didn't buy a mesh head until I understood bento. What a wise choice that was.

These two features combined & having researched them thoroughly beforehand meant my transition to both has been a dream come true.

Ty LL, Ty makers of FITTED MESH. One very happy camper indeed.    Spend spend spend <3 

Edited August 7, 2018 by Maryanne Solo
Bought more lindens for fitted mesh :)

[Ceka Cianci]

3 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

Head up the butt is still one of my absolute favorite tp glitches

The missing image thing, coupled with "land texture got added to your clothing layer", are my favorite texture/outfit glitches(though not necessarily related to tp-ing, lol)

I still get a good laugh when I look at pictures of them too

This was my favorite Glitch.. hehehehe

 

[Lara Aulder]

Then: Strippers, Lucky Chairs, Sploders, Freebies, Clubs & Contest Boards

Now: Shopping Events and personas with your big hate speeches about brands and how "badly it was done" and how "everyone should not support anymore - after 84 years" and "how duck lips bothers me but I'm still using all-the-time"  

 

Edited August 8, 2018 by Lara Aulder

[Alyona Su]

Then: Gaming sim (games of chance)

Now: Skilled Gaming sims (Games of chance that don;t look like games of chance)

Then: JEVN vendor rules SL

After then, before now: HIPPO vendor rules SL

Now: CasperVend rules SL

Then: SL eXhange Website marketplace (sucked)

After then, before now: OnRez Website (farking awesome)

After then, before now: LL buys SL eXchange and OnRez, kills OnRez, pissed everyone off.

Now: Market Place (way better than SL eXchange, still sucks compared to what OnRez was)

Then: GRENDAL'S CHILDREN! (Bestest EVAR cheap-avatar super-mall, be *ANYTHING*)

Now: We want mesh avatars, now mostly limited to humans and basic farm animals, save for a few beasts.

Then: Most items are copy and modify, many are full perms.

Now: No-Mod and No-Transfer

Then: Edit then Resize and position.

After then, before now: No-Modify, but RESIZE SCRIPTS! (Hair with 150 prims and script in each))

Now: RESIZE SCRIPTS, full stop.

Then: Grid Shutdown every Wednesday for four hours to restart all sims.

Now: Rolling restarts

Then: GRAY GOO CRASHES THE GRID

Now: Script kiddies resort to griefing individuals

Then: TP somewhere: Shoes or hair now attached to your BUTT.

Now: TP somewhere, some random, really important attachment like head or body is detached completely.

...oman, I could go on and on!

[Rhonda Huntress]

On 8/6/2018 at 8:37 AM, Coby Foden said:

Before (like in 2007):
Just buy anything what pleased you. Nothing more to think about.

Except adjusting the skirt length, if you could, which often entailed scaling and moving each prim individually.  And making a skirt shape; otherwise it looked like you were shoplifting watermelons.  Then editing each part to fit you shape.  Also, shrinking invisi-prims from people that just slapped on giant prim over everything.  And hope there are no hair/clothing transparency issues.  But then that last is still a thing even with mesh

 

[Coby Foden]

37 minutes ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

Except adjusting the skirt length, if you could, which often entailed scaling and moving each prim individually.  And making a skirt shape; otherwise it looked like you were shoplifting watermelons.  Then editing each part to fit you shape.  Also, shrinking invisi-prims from people that just slapped on giant prim over everything.  And hope there are no hair/clothing transparency issues.  But then that last is still a thing even with mesh

Then:
From the very beginning when I joined (2007) SL had a huge impact on me. "WOW, how did they make this world? Amazing!"
Even though SL was very rough and unpolished in many features at that time it was fun. I very soon learned how to edit things, I even liked adjusting clothing and hair flexies. Many times I unlinked all the prims from flexi skirt and re-assembled the prims to my liking. It was one of my pastimes - hours and hours spent doing that. How the end result looked wasn't so important, just doing it gave me lots of pleasure.
Now:
As most things are no mod, it feels rather sad state of things. But anyway I still do like SL a lot, there is no other place like it. There are lots of interesting things to do. And in many places SL looks really great.

(PS. Just recently I saw in one store "bento dresses". Oh no, please no!  It was stated that "bento gives wind movement to the dress". Erm.. no it does not! It looks really weird, unnatural even plain silly - at least in the couple of demos what I tried.)

[Phil Deakins]

10 hours ago, Coby Foden said:

It was stated that "bento gives wind movement to the dress". Erm.. no it does not! It looks really weird, unnatural even plain silly - at least in the couple of demos what I tried.)

Did you try farting in the dresses? Maybe that's what they meant by "wind movement", and the dress would billow out at the back. Try it. I may be right

[Fionalein]

10 hours ago, Coby Foden said:

(PS. Just recently I saw in one store "bento dresses". Oh no, please no!  It was stated that "bento gives wind movement to the dress". Erm.. no it does not! It looks really weird, unnatural even plain silly - at least in the couple of demos what I tried.)

But it does funny knots in your tails 

[Callum Meriman]

7 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

But it does funny knots in your tails 

Teehee. I can see it now as a tail animation plays and overrides the dresses movements. He looks up from her with a hypnotic glaze over his eyes "Ma'am, why is your dress happy to see me?" 

[Coby Foden]

4 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

Did you try farting in the dresses? Maybe that's what they meant by "wind movement", and the dress would billow out at the back. Try it. I may be right

Well, the bento movement is just some silly looped animation moving some parts of the dress without any obvious reason. No need to fart ... or do anything.
The bento dresses have their own life. Really weird looking! 

[Phil Deakins]

32 minutes ago, Coby Foden said:

The bento dresses have their own life. Really weird looking! 

I won't bother wearing one then

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

On 8/6/2018 at 9:21 AM, Phorumities said:

so go back to a system avi. I'm sure no will think less of you for your choice.

I have actually seen some profile stating that if you are not using a mesh body then the person will not talk to you because they spent a goodly (no not bigly) amount of money on their appearance and expect that if you wish to interact with them you must also put forth the same effort. . . . . ?

 

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

On 8/6/2018 at 7:31 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

For me, back in 2007:  buy, buy buy without doing any demos, but then spend many, many minutes trying to get the flexi prims on skirts to fit right (and totally avoid all those mini skirts that used tiny flaps across the crotch).  Also spend time adjusting pieces of hair - as long as it was Mod.  Shoes, thankfully back then were easy - even though our ankles looked horrid when exposed.

Then, roughly 2009, I think - mesh clothing, some of which looked nice, but "No, I do not want to change my shape for someone else's definition of small, medium, and large".  Thus I still wore a lot of flexi skirts - not to mention that they "moved".  Shoes became sculpt with feet and I had to spend forever matching my skin tone - which never gave a perfect match, hence all the shoes had some sort of ankle strap.  

Today:  Grab demos; take time to try them on (unless outfit is on a super cheap sale); note the ones that fit (though many require using alpha cuts to make it work); buy the ones that work and make an 'auto-hide' prim to go with said outfit.  Hair is a crock - the mesh ones don't move and the flexi ones are way to high CI.  Shoes are now a breeze - the one super, super, super good thing about mesh bodies. 

Some things are better, some not so much, but it is all progress.

Yes, well said. I miss the Flexi hair and not to mention prim jewelry which sends your RC sky-high.....

[Coby Foden]

Then:
You bought a skin, it covered you totally, head and body.

Now:
You bought a skin. Ah, this was only for the body! Then you search for seller who has matching skin for the head. Or vice versa.

If "then" somebody had made skin only for the body and other designer only for the head people would have been yelling "are you crazy!" ?