To be honest, if a guy I meet in RL turns out to be a cheapskate/scrooge/tight-arse, then that is a total turn-off to me (aside from lack of personal hygiene, bad taste and weird appearance). Now don't get me wrong - If someone is poor or doesn't earn much money, then it's understandable, if that person is always on a budget, but people who earn good money and just save it, but on the other side, always look for everything that is "free" no matter what it is, is a person who doesn't want to contribute to the economy -- thus a Scrooge.
For sure they MUST still buy daily necessities like food, toilette paper etc. but it's only because they have to. But I can bet my ass, that these people buy the cheapest ones they can get, so just they can save more money.
Anyways, back to SL. I thought of this new topic, to which I will always return to, every time I discover crap. So similar to WTF?!, this new topic is "You get what you pay for".
We all know about all sorts of resource kits being sold at XSL e.g. sculpted kits. Just like with every product, there are low and high quality ones and you can recognize them by the craftsmanship. The problem is, most resource kit users, just throw them out in the market and extremely devalue them, making them completely worthless. It's like throwing it out there for almost free, and on top of that, they also include their grandmother or insert any random valuable person or item here, as an extra.
I just wonder, why they buy resource kits that are so expensive and then just sell the item as it is, mostly the assembled sample from the creator, so they don't even make the effort of assembling it. Then they put it out there for almost free, destroying the value, thus shitting on other merchants, who might be using the same resource kit.
This is one reason why it takes too long for me to release anything, even if I partly use some of the resource kits, when it comes to anything including apparel, cuz I try to revise the items as much as possible. I know there will be people, perhaps blender users who would say: do it yourself! Learn how to sculpt! Yeah right.
Unlike many SL residents, I don't have the luxury of having too much time in my hands. I also have a RL that keeps me busy, so kits are very helpful. Imagine if everyone would do everything by themselves, then those resource kit sellers will be out of business. They sell tools for merchants to save time and focus on their creativity. So basically it's a service and you pay them for it.
Just like in RL, do you first prefer to go to school and finish a dressmaker, shoemaker, etc. course, then create your own clothes and shoes first. Or do you rather save time (well years for this matter) and go to the store and buy one instead? Or to be more blunt, would you rather take the effort of fucking yourself, if someone else can do that for you?
Of course "free" is great, but the truth is, nothing in life is for free. Period. You always pay a price in one way or another. Now if your time isn't worth anything to you, then do everything yourself.
Back to topic, I wonder what these product devaluers earn at the end, if they just throw them out in the market for little to almost no worth. I mean, do they even earn anything by using this method? There you can see, that they do not value hard work at all. Look at skins for example, they averagely cost 1000 L$. Why? Because they are so damn hard to create! It will also take you weeks, sometimes months to finish a decent looking skin. Now can you relate at all, if someone sells them for 299 L$ or even 99 L$? For a pack of 6 skins with different makeups, perhaps including the grandmother, first born baby etc.? Then either those are copybotted skins or ready made kits.
Ok enough of that, let me show you shots of two items I encountered. You might be familiar with this one, and when I saw the ads, I thought they were very well made. But then check out the shots, cuz they show the truth. Just so you know, my LOD factor is already at 5 and I got a decent graphic card. So it's not because of that. I also didn't edit the shots at all, cuz I'm too lazy right now.
These sandals come with a HUD, to tint your skin and change nail color. The skin tinter doesn't really work well, since the sculpted feet already has a baked tinted skin texture, which is difficult to match to your skin color. I'm not sure if there's a resizer, well maybe, but I didn't find it. They are also no mod, so you are basically fucked lol! BTW, I got these sandals for 10 L$ and it's not a promo or introductory price. (click on image to enlarge and see more details *shudder*)
Looks scary doesn't it? Like the skin of a dead corpse laying in the water for many hours. Shoes with sculpted feet are already creepy in their own way, cuz they remind me of amputated feet. But sloppy sculpt assembling like this example, makes it even more creepier.
Well you know what? You get what you pay for!
Now next example is not as bad as the first one. It's a fat pack with color change option, poses (freebie poses), annoying walk sound for 10 L$ (dunno if it's till on XSL). It's actually a very good sculpted work, but like usual, many just devalued them, by throwing them out as is, in the market for almost free.
Notice that the seller didn't even take the effort of choosing better attachment points for the parts, since it fucks up the boots, if you're using your AO as you can see in the shots. Luckily they're modifiable, so I adjusted them, to make them look better, but unfortunately they're still fucked up.
You get what you pay for!
