Do LL works in progress affect your SL budget?

[Blush Bravin]

I posted yesterday about how the upcoming BoM is affecting my purchases, and one of the responses led me to consider if other projects have affected my spending. Thinking back I can remember the first time I stopped spending lindens on products because something new and better was on the horizon so I saved my money to spend on the new.. that was when we were first getting fitted mesh. I quickly stopped spending money on any standard sized mesh. The next instance was when Bento was announced. I stopped buying animations for my AO or any dances. I am currently waiting to buy a pet cat since I want a fancy smancy new animesh kitty. I'm also contemplating selling off some of my mainland or opening a new premium account and moving to SSP if it turns out as good as it currently looks. 

As a merchant, I think about this but honestly it affects me much more as a shopper than a creator. So my question is .. how do upcoming Linden Lab projects affect your spending here in SL?

[BilliJo Aldrin]

since i'm not interested in the "latest and greatest" they have no effect whatsoever.

bakes on mesh? wow system layers for mesh avies

bento hands? Id rather emote giving someone the finger

animesh? I derender them as as soon as i see them

SSP? slightly higher class LL ghetto 

[Ipecac Burnham]

41 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

how do upcoming Linden Lab projects affect your spending here in SL?

They don't.

 

What greatly affects my purchases are purely Resident based.

 

Namely,

 

Does it have LODs?.

Is it yes modify?.

Is it No copy?.

Will I have to buy two other HUD's just to use it?.

Does the script in it crash?.

Does it force me into an Experience I want no part of?.

Is the creator someone I am willing to support?.

 

I'm entirely looking forwards to LL's new stuff but if I see a cool toy, I'm gonna get it.

[Bree Giffen]

It doesn't affect my purchases one bit. I'm blissfully unaware of anything coming down the line. 

[Janet Voxel]

Not really. Here’s why: most of the time something gets rolled out, there’s what I call lag time. That is when something comes out, there’s a few products that take advantage of it, of varying quality and the rest still keep chugging along for a while then eventually adapt and some update older items eventually.

Fitmesh: that was kind of big. Creators adapted pretty quickly. This might be the only one where I bought only fitmesh when it came out.

Bento: It was nice but it wasn’t like I had to have bento stuff. Since I’m a Belleza wearer, I had to suffer through having to wearing Slink and vista hands until they actually came out with bento hands. A lot of people jumped ship because of that, so I know a creator can suffer if they don’t adapt fast enough. Some creators did go back and retrofit some Belleza rings, nails,etc so it wasn’t that bad.

BoM: As big of a deal as it seems, I’m finding a lot of people don’t know what it is or really care about it. So for something like the skin fair that opened today I wouldn’t be surprised if anybody did anything BoM related. None of the bodies I have, have put out a BoM version yet. Only lelutka has put out a BoM head so far. Personally, I don’t think people are going to rush to adopt it because it’s going to render a lot of skin related items unusable, at least for a little while. Then there will be a gradual roll out. More head and body makers will put out a BoM update. Then skin, makeup, and tattoo makers will put out updates. 

Animesh is kind of on bento level. It’s not a deal breaker, it’s mainly for Knick-knacks and doodads. Those will only improve as time goes on, so it’s probably better to just wait until something you really want comes out.

So all that to say usually a lot has to happen for the full effect of rollouts to be felt. So something being on the horizon isn’t necessarily going to make me need it now. Let the creators play around with it and come out with it when it’s good to go.

[Qie Niangao]

Can't say it's affecting my SL buying, but I still have hopes for BoM. There are just so many problems with current mesh avatars some of which (such as blended-alpha sorting) will be remedied by BoM. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe it did affect my buying: I had been considering adding a Mesh avatar to another alt or two, then held off until we see how much BoM really gets us in practice.

Like... will scripted alpha-cut controls be replaced by alpha mask textures, as with system avatars? That was in the original BoM proposal, but I haven't been following the feature development at all. Clearly that's knowable -- I just don't know it.

Over the years, I've learned to be skeptical of not-yet-released features that sounded super shiny when first described. Animesh is one of those: it turned out to be inappropriate for a bunch of applications that I was expecting would use it, due to its 15 Land Impact minimum. If all one wants is a few decorative critters wandering around, that will cost an awful lot of LI compared to quite acceptable non-Animesh substitutes that have been on the market for years. One pet: maybe. A small flock of independently grazing ruminants? Too LI-spendy for me.

On the other hand, I haven't run out to buy a bunch of old-school roaming critters just because Animesh is kind of a bust, so I'm not sure I had purchases that were put off by prospects of Animesh.

[ItHadToComeToThis]

The only purchase it's affecting is premium. I'm not paying for a year until I know what the new premium deals are incase what suits me is actually cheaper. Other than that no

[Coffee Pancake]

Yes, they do affect my purchases, 100%.

I am holding off on buying tats and stuff that don't already ship with a tattoo layer copy, and I am not buying any cute decorative critters till they are all animesh.

BoM will totally take off, warts and all, and we as usual will learn to work around any shortfalls. None animesh critters are .. just still boring critters.

[Ceka Cianci]

Not really..I'm usually late to the party, mainly because I like to wait changes out a bit.. I like to hear feedback before I jump into changes..So I pretty much stay with what I'm doing until I do actually jump on board..

Like with BOM..I'm not really saving any of my old things for that..If anything changes give me an excuse to go shopping more.. hehehehe

[Janet Voxel]

Yeah, it takes about 2 minutes for a creator to take a uuid and make a system skin and most of them have a redelivery system where they can send out updates.

If they don’t, I’m sure someone will make a converter anyway to put applier stuff on a BoM body. I can definitely see that being a thing too.

[Blush Bravin]

I will admit that I jump on the bandwagon for new things. But, the new has to be an improvement on the old. Once I see that it is indeed better, I embrace the new with complete abandon to the point of deleting all the old stuff. I think that's why I am very reluctant to spend money on things that would be of no use to me in a few weeks or possibly even a couple of months. 

[Blush Bravin]

6 hours ago, janetosilio said:

None of the bodies I have, have put out a BoM version yet. Only lelutka has put out a BoM head so far.

It's true that only Lelutka has put out a BoM enabled mesh, which I'm super happy about by the way. But we really don't have to wait on the body makers to put out BoM updates because you can currently get the Omega thingy (nice technical term there) to make the bodies/heads use BoM system layers. My biggest problem is going to be getting my favorite skin appliers in system layers. Again, here's where my spending habits are affected by LL projects. I will gladly pay for the system layers. I don't expect to get everything updated for free. 

I really am itching to spend lots of lindens on tattoos because finally I will be able to wear them and my pantyhose without alpha glitching!

[kali Wylder]

I'm confused, not unusual for me, but still, I thought that BoM would allow me to wear my old system clothes on my Mesh Maitreya body. It's why I was so happy that I'm such a pack rat and I still have all that system stuff in my inventory.

[Blush Bravin]

37 minutes ago, kali Wylder said:

I'm confused, not unusual for me, but still, I thought that BoM would allow me to wear my old system clothes on my Mesh Maitreya body. It's why I was so happy that I'm such a pack rat and I still have all that system stuff in my inventory.

It will. If you want to use your old system clothing it's certainly possible. For some of us though, the main reason we want it isn't for wearing old system clothing but for fixing some of the glitching issues we have with wearing multiple layers that have transparency. It also will allow us to wear many more layers (baked down into one texture) than what we can now with our mesh bodies. There's a multitude of possibilities with BoM. There are also some issues that make some less than happy with the project. That's not me though. 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I've just finished a huge project with converting sets of skins for the omega applier system,  I had no idea BOM was a thing, UGH.  this is going to require more on my part to do.

[Blush Bravin]

24 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I've just finished a huge project with converting sets of skins for the omega applier system,  I had no idea BOM was a thing, UGH.  this is going to require more on my part to do.

If you have the system skins and also the appliers then you're covered. Just include both in your packages.

[Parhelion Palou]

The upcoming projects aren't affecting my spending. It's been years since I routinely had roaming animals in my builds so I'm not that interested in animesh. BoM won't affect me ... all that's on my mesh body's layers is skin. I haven't owned any mainland since September 2006 & won't go back, so the updated Linden homes aren't interesting. What I'm waiting for is EEP, and perhaps global experiences.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

It's more like all this "progress" affects my spending by making it so much harder to find things to buy I've largely given up shopping because it's just not worth the frustration.

Like fitmesh. My avatars are small and slim and XS or S usually works better for both of them than the fitmesh. There are fewer calculations for the computer to do for fixed size clothes too, so that's an easy choice for me. But of course it's becoming increasingly unavailable.

Or shoes. Bitsy doesn't have mesh feet and I don't see the point in putting excess geometry under geometry for the sake of rigging. I gather more normal women look at the painfully high break your ankles shoes and think NEED!!!!, but my brain just goes PAIN!!!. I get enough of that in RL from fibromyalgia, so since the Slink high has come to dominate styles I've stopped thinking of shoes as something I might buy.

New skin offerings are all about mesh faces. I understand that's where the excitement and money is, but I have zero interest in carting around all that extra geometry just so it looks more airbrushed on the off chance a passing stranger cams in close to examine my av. BOM could lead to less of a division between system avs and mesh bodies but given how willing creators have been to abandon us system avs, I don't have much hope that it will make a significant difference. It's used to be that all sorts of niche was easy to find, but it just keeps getting harder and harder.

[Blush Bravin]

4 hours ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

Or shoes. Bitsy doesn't have mesh feet and I don't see the point in putting excess geometry under geometry for the sake of rigging. I gather more normal women look at the painfully high break your ankles shoes and think NEED!!!!, but my brain just goes PAIN!!!. I get enough of that in RL from fibromyalgia, so since the Slink high has come to dominate styles I've stopped thinking of shoes as something I might buy.

I actually don't like wearing the high heel version of the mesh feet. I LOVE LOVE my mesh ankles though. I only buy with few exceptions flat and mid level shoes. I also HATE HATE ankle locks. It's the main reason I wear flats or when I choose heels it's a medium and not a high heel.

5 hours ago, Parhelion Palou said:

all that's on my mesh body's layers is skin.

Don't like tattoos? Or skin enhancing elements like scars or wrinkles?

4 hours ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

BOM could lead to less of a division between system avs and mesh bodies but given how willing creators have been to abandon us system avs, I don't have much hope that it will make a significant difference.

The awesome thing about BoM is that now there will actually be a market for system layers again. And since LL has removed the UUID from the avatar test report, it will be harder, not impossible by any means, but harder to just rip the UUIDs from a normal viewer. So with a slight bit of protection and a new market for system layers opening up I think you're going to see the availability of system layers returning.

 

5 hours ago, Parhelion Palou said:

I'm waiting for is EEP

EEP hasn't really been on my radar, but that too will give me something new to spend my money on. I'm not sure what, because I really don't understand EEP other than it will affect windlights at the parcel level. But my understanding is that there will be things you can buy to use with EEP. Guess I need to read up on that. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

7 hours ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

New skin offerings are all about mesh faces.

This is pretty much true.  I don't wear tattoos and seldom use anything like wrinkles/freckles/beauty marks/etc..., so I don't really care about skin layers. However, when the skin creators start putting out more skin as a system layer, then I'll have more skin choices since I'm still using my system head.  It will also shoot my makeup choices up drastically.  That is the only reason I'm wanting more creators to start embracing BoM and releasing for it.

[steeljane42]

6 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

This is pretty much true.  I don't wear tattoos and seldom use anything like wrinkles/freckles/beauty marks/etc..., so I don't really care about skin layers. However, when the skin creators start putting out more skin as a system layer, then I'll have more skin choices since I'm still using my system head.  It will also shoot my makeup choices up drastically.  That is the only reason I'm wanting more creators to start embracing BoM and releasing for it.

I wouldn't get too excited about it if I were you. There's a pretty good chance that those skins will look completely broken on system heads. It's the case even now, when skin makers make a skin with a certain mesh head in mind. You can still apply it to other heads of the same brand just fine and even to other brands if skin applier is omega, but in most cases the result is "meh" at best and unusuable at worst (wrong position for lips, eye corners and so on), some heads have very different topology. And I very much doubt skin creators will take their time to make special versions of the same skins for system heads, if they wanted to they'd be doing it already without BoM.

 

As for the topic. It doesn't affect my SL budget at all. Well, almost. It did once when it was close to the bento release, I had a non bento mesh head and was considering changing it to something else, but it was just a couple of months until full bento release already, so I did wait a bit. Other than that, nope. Don't care about BoM at all too, since the only type of an applier I use are catsuits with materials on a "clothing" layer for 3D effect instead of just painted clothing look, which BoM won't support at release (and probably for a long long time, based on how slow LL are at implementing new things in general).

Edited March 9, 2019 by steeljane42

[Blush Bravin]

1 hour ago, steeljane42 said:

I wouldn't get too excited about it if I were you. There's a pretty good chance that those skins will look completely broken on system heads. It's the case even now, when skin makers make a skin with a certain mesh head in mind. You can still apply it to other heads of the same brand just fine and even to other brands if skin applier is omega, but in most cases the result is "meh" at best and unusuable at worst (wrong position for lips, eye corners and so on), some heads have very different topology. And I very much doubt skin creators will take their time to make special versions of the same skins for system heads, if they wanted to they'd be doing it already without BoM.

Good point. The one thing that might change is that with BoM creators can make a base skin with little details and then they can make feature tattoos to use with those base skins. LAQ did this back in the day just before mesh body parts became a thing. I remember buying one of her skins and then also buying a different nose and eyelid tattoos to use with that skin. So it's possible those kinds of options will return, which might work out okay with a system head. Of course this is speculation but I really believe BoM is going to change how we buy and use skins greatly in the future.