Thursday 27 October 2011

The Q and A

Recently Levio and Allison attended a Q&A session held by Sacred Tome. They had a decent chat and answered a few questions, some of them with very interesting information. The meeting was held using voice and the recording has not yet been transcribed as far as I know, the audio is about 105min long. I have listened to it all and intend to share some of the highlights. If you wish to listen to the recording yourself it is available on the Sacred Tome blog HERE.

A few quick items: There will be a script update. Sounds like it will be before the expansion, Chapter 2. Team Meeroos intends to ensure there is always something new to discover. So when all eyes, or all tails, or all of any trait have been found the goal is to immediately add new content. This has nothing to do with expansions, like Chapter 2, but only with updating existing Meeroos. There has been no official decision on what the remedy to the Regard situation will be. I suspect that decision alone may hold Chapter 2 back a few days. Levio has awesomely reiterated that there are no plans to develop or release "add-on" products for Meeroos such as fertility boosters. Excellent news, good to see Malevay Studios is maintaining their dedication to that issue.

Fascinating factoid: Levio says in the recording that Meeroo Personalities were added to the game specifically to stimulate the secondary market. Another example of foresight on the part of Malevay Studios. I think it has worked out well, and also birthed a trade network where Nests and lives are swapped to create compatible pairs. Some of my best Meeroos have come from Nest trades.

Not much can be said about the Nocturnals yet, prior to release most everything about them is secret. Levio was able to share that Nocturnals and Diurnals will be interbreedable immediately upon release. So the day Chapter 2 goes live you will be able to begin pairing new Nocturnals with Diurnal Meeroos you have now. For the curious: the Bengal coat Meeroo is a Diurnal, it will be breedable from the Meeroos we have now.

A major piece of data concerning the retiring of coats emerged during the Q&A: When a Coat is retired from the starter kits it will no longer be available to have as a new Nest either. Once the Coat is retired it will be impossible to produce a new Nest with that Coat. If we use, as an example, Winecoats; say Winecoats are retired. There would not be any in starter packs. I assume one of the higher Coats would drop down into the starter packs. Levio said that new genetics would not be available in starter packs, so it is a fairly safe guess that another Coat will move down into them. Even if you pair two (2) Winecoats, once the Coat is retired, they will not have Winecoat offspring. Retirement will cap the number of that type on the Grid, there will be no way to create more. Which Coat will be withdrawn has not been announced. I use Winecoats as an example only, it could be any of the current starter Coats.

Other miscellaneous items of note: There will remain only one HUD, even once Chapter 2 is released there will be one HUD only. It will work with all Meeroos. Much in the same vein you will not need new Home stumps for Nocturnals. Levio mentions at one point that there was, once, a plan to add rarity indicators to the Meeroos HUD. I had never heard of it, but in any case the idea has been scrapped and that data will not be added to the HUD. Things that Levio tells us will also probably not be happening: Copyable Homes, Having more than eight (8) Meeroos on a Home and Affiliate Vendors. All fine with me. The Meeroos per Home thing sounds like a script memory issue, and I would think not worth trying to circumvent. I totally understand their Affiliate Vendor stance after all the attempts made to defraud Malevay Studios and its customers. I would never have expected copyable Homes to be on the table, they would have to be inordinately expensive. A note on Home stump distances, Levio advises that the ideal ratio of Homes per square meter is less than twelve (12) Homes per 20sqm area. Maintain that spacing and you should rarely, if ever, experience stump hopping.

Finally, in more super good news, once released the Nocturnals will dig up their own unique Treasures. Levio was uncertain if they will have their own basic Treasures analogous to the Tin Can and Rotten Banana of the Diurnal Meeroos or if it will be restricted to the "better" Treasures. I hope they have their own basic Treasures, they are a small touch but they add so much to the experience. I am always in favour of adding in more Treasure types, both basic and spectacular [epic?].

There is more in the recording that I have not mentioned here, what I have done is the highlights of my notes. If you have the time, pop over to the Sacred Tome website and have a listen for yourself.

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3 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for putting this out there! Truly appreciate it :D

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  2. You are very welcome Celeste. It was an interesting listen, I only wish I could have been there for the actual Q&A.

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