Now that Bakes On Mesh (BOM) has hit the grid, things have changed.
While I am excited for all the old (and new!) stuff I can now wear easily with BOM and without faffing with a zillion appliers, I am NOT excited about the inventory bloat I see headed my way.
Unless you’re an old SL’er from way back, like me, you may not remember how all the system layers worked. But we never had enough of them. When mesh bodies hit the grid, suddenly everything became appliers (HUDs with whatever you needed to wear/apply loaded into them). So instead of 20 thongs in 20 colors in my inventory, I had one mesh thong, and HUD that would let me change it into 20 different colors. 20 items vs 2 items was a blessing for my inventory.
But now that system layers are back with BOM, I can easily see my inventory creeping up every time I buy something. Because some people will want the system layers, but others will still want the appliers – so creators will provide them all. Who doesn’t want to keep their customers happy?
But that means I could end up with 24 items – the 20 BOM system layers in different colors AND the mesh item AND the HUD/applier.
I may have to become ruthless when it comes to new purchases. I’m still on the fence about unboxing my old inventory stuff as well. I mean, while it’s great that I can wear a skin I purchased in 2013, do I really want to? Is it worth spending the time unboxing everything just to see?
When I box something up in RL, my rule is that I haven’t needed it in 6 months or longer, it goes. It clearly wasn’t something I needed. (There are exceptions, of course – seasonal clothing and decorations, things like that.) But since my SL inventory is, in theory, infinite – maybe they can just stay in boxes for now and I can wait another 5 years for a trip down memory lane.
We’ll see. In the meantime, I definitely have some purging to do! If you need tips for managing your own inventory, I’ve written some tips and tricks here. It’s still useful information. 🙂
A Kat and A Mouse 