Another important point to consider which I've made a thread about some time ago, is the transition and adoption period from VAM 1.x users to VAM 2.x.
As of now VAM 1.x is like the "Skyrim" in this 'field' of Sex Simulators out there. There's been years and hundreds of creators and editors' worth of content for download, either free or paid. In the end, there's too much content to just leave behind whenever VAM 2.x does come out. The reality is that whenever VAM 2.x will come out it will absolutely pale in comparison to the total amount of content already available for 1.x. Additionally, even if VAM 2.x would allow for somewhat of a 'smooth' porting of 1.x mods over, the real issue isn't exactly whether or not it will be "Easy" to do; it's about whether or not original creators / editors of content WILL bother to do it at all, or if they don't, then will they give permission for someone else to do it for them.
I've seen this situation happen to some degree (but not comparable to the scale of the situation that will affect VAM) with Honey Select. The first Honey Select (regardless of what some people here might think of it in terms of 'quality') had a gold mine of content that accumulated Skyrim Mods-style over many years. When Honey Select 2 came out it was struggling to attract the "mass" of users. The only thing it really had going for itself at the start were somewhat improved character models (not that crazy of an upgrade, but it was there) and better Lightning / Shadows and that's about it. In fact, the Facial expressions were worse in HS2 compared to HS1 (at least initially, for the period of time I did try HS2 when it came out I was stunned by the downgrade of that). It took HS2 many months to start receiving enough Plugins and content mod ports to "catch up" on just a fraction of the content that could be found for the first one (which remained very active during the first year or two of HS2's release).
I absolutely predict the same will happen for VAM 2.x. In fact, I would argue that the 'problem' with VAM might be worse simply because a LOT of the content that many users have is Paid-for, and I actually know of Patreon artists (authors of content here) who will do at least a portion of their VAM 1.x content ports by Commissions only. So imagine a situation where you download some Paid-for Look that you've gotten without maybe knowing that originally it was Commissioned at a price, only to find out that to use that Look in VAM 2.x you'd have to subcribe to that Patreon artist AND pay him (or her) the original Commission price (or at least probably half of it, but that will be the decision of the artist) in order to get that same Look in VAM 2.x. Now granted, such a situation will be rare, and probably very niche too. But it will happen, believe me. It's not like Patreon artists will do everything for free (nor do I "blame" them for it, they DO, in many cases, absolutely deserve to be paid for their work and nothing will ever change my mind on that).
That's why in my original post about this looming "issue" for VAM 2.x I highly recommended that the MeshedVR team - somehow - produce more updates to VAM 1.x at least in terms of performance improvements (if at all possible). However, there's also a problem of a sort of "Self Competition" situation with this. If MeshedVR were to upgrade VAM 1.x further, it would down-value VAM 2.x, especially at release; because then VAM 1.x would truly still be way better, like WAY better for general content for most users. The reality is that the majority of users will have in mind that they are content (no pun intended) with whatever it is that VAM 1.x offers them, regardless of how "better" 2.x would be. And there would be NO such thing as an argument like "There's no reason not to move on to VAM 2.x, it's just way better in every possible way". That would NOT be true. There's absolutely no chance VAM 2.x will have even the fraction of the content mods at release AND for many months to follow. The only reason why someone with 1 or 2TB worth of VAM 1.x content would "Move on to" 2.x would simply be because of curiosity and to see "what it's like" for a few test runs; then they'll close it and go back to 1.x because their favorite content and their whole setup is there, not in 2.x.
It's not as simple as "Let's make a better VAM and that's it", I'm afraid. It will be up to the community itself (rather than up to MeshedVR) to MAKE that new VAM version truly worth it in the end. Even if on a technical level 'everything' is better. That's like asking me to play Starfield when it comes out, versus NOT playing my Modded Skyrim which literally took me months to work on with tons of guides and downloads and .INI file adjustments and tests for stability and truly things I don't even remember I did in order to make the game look the way it does and play with the content it has. Just won't happen.
So the point of all this is to say that VAM 2.x will have a LONG way to go even IF it ever does come out, before it can truly be considered 'better'. What makes VAM great is the content mods community for it.
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