For a while now, every new user gets to choose from a selection of avatars.
A while ago Ebbe Linden announced that these would be updated soon.
And just now I’ve learned that the first of these starter- or stock avatars has already been revealed… by none other that Ebbe himself!
Ladies and gentlemen, one of the new starter avatars as worn by our lovely model Ebbe Linden;
This is interesting news for more than one reason.
Not only is it nice to see more realistic and dare I say it, handsome avatars being given to new users who join SL.
But it is also interesting to note that this avatar is a lot closer to a more realistic scale (aka Prim Scale) than the previous ones.
It seems that the many topics about scale in SL by people as Penny Patton and myself may have gotten trough.
Either way, I think this avatar is a step forward and I can’t wait till the other avatars are announced,
However… there is of course a downside to this.
I think that mesh avatars are harder to customise and finding clothes for them that go with the mesh avatar may be trickier as well.
Especially if you’re new to SL, it can be quite frustrating to discover that the old types of clothing won’t fit and that mesh has issues of its own.
For instance, Ebbe himself took some while to rez properly in my viewer today.
This was of course in an extremely busy area of SL, but still.
I can imagine quite a few confused and frustrated new users who aren’t sure how to deal with mesh avatars.
Having said that, coincidentally 😉 Linden Lab just announced that they are going to try and make it easier for people to buy the right clothes for their avatar.
Dymoon said:
wow progress always has its ups and downs, for a newcomer, trying to find clothes that fit will indeed be challenging
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belinda barnes said:
The SL economy is highly driven by avatar vanity (uniqueness) and women’s fashion. Key to this is modifiable customizable avatars. For the Lindens to convince us to trash our clothing and shape/skin inventory amassed over years for a mesh alternative, they will have to make them customizable with a dash of physics for good measure.
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Dahlia Jayaram said:
Ooops…the emperor’s new clothes. Now THAT is embarrassing! (By the way, I can see the new resident avatar has a nice bum! Maybe Ebbe was just rezzing slowly to take advantage of marketing that fine point! hihihi)
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Shug Maitland said:
I agree totally with belinda, cookie cutter avatars are probably not the best way to go. A whole new level of avatar confusion will not help retention either.
The first thing I noticed however, was the collar of the shirt! Far from an example of realism!
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JubJub said:
I agree, avatar confusion might be a problem eg; can a newb add clothing for these new avatars?
However, they might be a new mesh that responds to the older avatar quirks, ie; face emotions, hand movements, moving lips – that would then enable canny mesh makers to utilize the same functions 🙂
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Anna said:
I’ve not played SL for months now, but I remember the avatars you can choose from being ugly as hell.
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Jo Yardley said:
They are only the starter avatars though, you can start changing and improving them right away.
Using nicer mesh avatars is a double edged sword, if you use ugly simple avatars people will be unhappy, but when you use nice complicated mesh avatars they will be unhappy a swell.
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Madame Thespian said:
I recently demo-ed a mesh avatar from the Marketplace and was VERY disappointed that the lips don’t move and one can’t use a facial expression HUD with them. As a person attracted to the immersive experience of SL, the frozen expression and motionless lips of a mesh avatar is off putting and unattractive — as much so as talking to someone who’s real life face is frozen solid with Botox….ugh! I’ll stick with the customizable avatar bodies!
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Julianna said:
Hi, all funny this mesh av is unedit, i think even for a newbie it will be confusing not know what to do in this thing at lease with the old LL AV’s you can get a ton of clothes and customize it a lot to your liking, this thing is very ugly i don’t know why they released this unedit mesh, genderless ugly nude crash test dummy, i say back to the Lab then come out with a editable attractive mesh with all the fitted mesh tecno that they released in the first place. it’s a crime to see such bad judgment from a company that has the forefront on technology at it’s finger tips, it’s like they don’t read the news or something, thumbs down on the 1st generation release for LL
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