I feel like this idea requires a little storytelling, in how the idea popped into my mind, but, obviously you can skip the story with a glance or a scroll! lol xD
I’m walking my avi from bush to tree, harvesting goods on my friend’s sim, for the current cook, admiring (specifically) how easy the apple trees are to see the harvest happen, as the fruit disappears. Thinking that made me think of the other fruit trees which also are easy to see this on, the Orange Tree sticking out to me. In part because I’m a Florida born and raised, but also because I freaking love the smell of oranges. xD Anyroad, I’m (onto) harvesting blueberries and thinking/picturing the orange tree, saying in my mind, “It’s a baby tree” because I recognize it looks so scraggly in that baby-tree way. And that’s when I think it…
Wouldn’t it be cool if later down the road, as the game picks up in users and locations-- say, triples (x3) or quadruples (x4) its size, members who have owned the fruit trees X-amount of time (from the beginning range) get exclusive update mesh trees, with the same functions, maybe more fruit and of course, being bigger, more robust looking trees. Representing they have aged, and also that the owner has been a user/supporter of SLC’s for … howeverlong?
Maybe someone has already thought of this, I haven’t read all the way around yet. Or maybe the creators have already considered/thought about it and just kept it to themselves so far, and in which case, consider this my vote on the matter. xD I think it would be cool to see fruit trees “grow”, perhaps bushes get more berries? Not sure how that might work, and I figure, for Land Impact reasons, it would be option if the owners of the products want to use their upgraded trees.
As I understand it, the problem in that is in the finding of the trees themselves. We ragged on Drakkhis about his scrawny fruit trees a while back, but the meshes just aren’t there at a reasonable price right now. And scaling those trees…crazy land impact!
What would be totally awesome, though, would be if we could recruit a mesh artist as a player who fell in love with the system enough to want to help support it by providing free or low-cost, efficient, good-looking meshes that they could add to the game.
Yes, mesh artists, I’m calling you out. I would do it, but I can’t even make a box in Blender, let alone a complex mesh.
Would it be a cool longevity perk? Absolutely! I’d vote for that.
As you said, land impact goes up with higher quality. With meshes, it is based on faces. More detail=more faces=more impact. It is a trade off. Also, higher impact may detour players that aren’t able to afford bigger parcels.
When we first started SLColonies, we had a mesh artist. But as it grew, he moved on to his own project. His real skills are in texturing and clothing design and his brand has taken off.
You can see the difference in mesh and texture in our earlier product vs what we are making now.
Since our mesh dude left, we’ve had to use mesh that is available in the market as full perm and put things together and to find decent mesh from other mesh design locations on the interwebs.
Drakkhis has also made some mesh, but his biggest skill comes in programming and coding. Texturing is a new skill he is still working on and it is getting better as he goes along doing it.
I personally, didn’t intend the idea to be something people could purchase on the market, at least not right away, but rather an upgrade REWARD to the oldest existing players. Just incase that wasn’t clear. In that gift, would be the option to use, as you’re quite right, someone with limited Land Impact usage, might not want bigger/more complex trees. xD
@TemujinCalidius , Thank you for the tid-bits of personal history on the project! It helped put things into perspective! <3 On that note, I don’t know for sure that I know a Mesh Artist who’d be down for a project like this… but… say I did, and they were willing to agree to a profit share on the meshes that are put on the market (that listing option that allows you to put a % of profit to another member for their contributions,) for you guys, what might that look like? I understand that ideally it would be little or (ideally) no monies upfront, and they would effectively be investing too, yet I imagine you guys might have some ideas on what that (ideal) partnership with a Mesh Artist might look like. xD If I know, I can lend my conscious doings to seeing if/when we can get someone on board.
BOTTOM LINE, I’m getting that WITH a Mesh (& texture) Artist, this kind of upgrade/reward idea would probably be totally cool and supported, yes?