New Nests, New Coats, New HUD, Oh My!

Sometime in the near future Meeroo Nests are going to undergo a slight change, for the better. As part of an update Nests are going to be improved in subtle but significant ways. The biggest and most welcome upgrade is that, post update, CSR's will be able to replace lost Meeroo Nests with another Nest. They will no longer be restricted to replacing only live Meeroos. If you have ever required a Nest replacement for a Meeroo you had plans to save in its Nest you will understand how important that is. Tiger makes a very important note: "If you do get a nest replaced and sent to you by a CSR, it is imperative you rezz it immediately as the process is not complete until after you do this." It sounds like the replacement Nest will need to communicate with the database, with you as the owner, to complete the transaction. If you do get a Nest given back to you by a CSR do not keep it in Inventory. Rez it first and give it a few minutes to connect, then it should be safe to take back to Inventory. This improvement is not live yet, as far as I know CSR's can not replace lost Nests with new Nests yet.

 Nests are also getting visual gender identification in addition to float text: The small white flowers that we are used to seeing on Nests are going to get some colour. Nests containing male Meeroos will be adorned with blue flowers and female Nests will have pink. Colour coding the Nests will save a huge amount of time when shopping. On a less practical note the varied colours on the Nests should make my Nest filled Meeroo area a touch brighter.

Also announced in THIS blog post by Tiger: "There will be a new HUD that kicks off the start of Chapter 2 content." Not only do we have the new and improved Nests to look forward to but also an update to the now very familiar HUD. I do not know what we might expect to see change on the HUD but it is bound to be interesting.

Preceding all of the above there have recently been three (3) new Coats discovered: Darkmire, Silverbay and Mistwalker. I have not been able to locate any to photograph yet, but the links on their names above go to photos of them posted online. Catherine says that these Coats are not from the twenty five (25) new Coats promised and that they have always been available for discovery: "The new coats we're seeing are not a part of the update. They've been in the current genetics since release, and there are still more I'm sure we'll see soon." from THIS forum post. We can expect to be notified when the genetics update is applied, as Catherine says: "The genetics update includes a large amount of new content, and I'll definitely let you know when that goes live!" That is the genetics update to our current Meeroos, unrelated to the Chapter 2 expansion.

Keep your eyes out for those newly colour coded Nests and of course new Coats. Soon we should be seeing more facets of Chapter 2 dropping into place followed by the release of the Nocturnals themselves. There is much to come.

A Nest by any Other Name: Nest Inventory Management

Something I have always thought is a bit odd: you can not rename Meeroo Nests. There is no option in the menu and the HUD Rename button will not work on Nests. This means every Meeroo Nest anywhere in Second Life is called something like "Meeroo Nest #465788" the only difference being the ID# of course. At first I was concerned, if the Nests can not be renamed how am I going to keep track of them? With previous breedables renaming the nascent baby form was always an option. I renamed the Object with a label based on its parentage and traits then took it into Inventory where it could be easily searched. I quickly realized that not being able to label Meeroo Nests in the same way is not really a problem at all, there are two (2) simple solutions:

One is to place the Nest inside another Prim that you create for the purpose. Since you own the container Prim you can name it whatever you like. Apply the label/name to the container Prim that you would rename the Nest to if it were possible, then place the Nest inside the Prim. Now you can take the Prim into Inventory and it is exactly the same, from a search standpoint, as if you has changed the name of the Nest itself. Pluses for this system: you can send other avatars the container Prim, with the Nest inside, when trading or selling. This way the nest information is passed along with it, and it appears in their Inventory with trait information already attached. This point is nullified if your labelling method is indecipherable. If nobody knows what the name means you may as well just give them the Nest. Minuses: You have to first rez the Prim then take the Nest into Inventory then rez the Nest when you want to Coax. You would also need to do the same to verify the correct Nest is in the Prim. Which could be a pain.

Another way, the one I use and prefer, is to create folders in your Inventory for each Nest. Create a folder with all of the same trait information you would use for a container Prim, or if you could rename the Nest, then take the Nest into Inventory and place it in the folder. I also have Personality type folders to separate the Nest container folders. [See photos below] That way if I am looking for mates based on Personality it is easy to view every one I have of the target type. One possible drawback to this method is possibly loosing the metadata when you trade or sell the Nest. I suggest transferring the folder containing the Nest instead of the Nest itself. This will give the receiving avatar the Nest inside the folder in their root Inventory directory. It may confuse them, if they are newer, that the Nest is not in their Objects folder, but if you explain where to find it that is easily solved. They can also find it in Recent items and of course by searching. On the up side it is easy to rez the Nests directly from Inventory to check them and, once they have been placed in the folder, when you "take" them back into Inventory they will go back to their proper folder. You do not have to manually place it back in the folder you rezzed it from, it will go right back there when you take it.

Personality Folders in my Inventory root directory
(the !!! is so, when sorted by name, they are at the top of the list)

Individual Meeroo Nests & their folders

Quick, but amusing note: If you employ random Meeroo Nest sellers in your business, especially if you do not have loads of Nests in it, you might want to use the first option to obscure the Nest ID#'s. If you do not then anybody who wishes to do so can edit the Object and check the contents. Once they have the Nest ID#'s they can check the WW of Meeroos website to get all the information about them. Sort of defeats the purpose if you ask me. However maybe more work than it is worth, more-so if you have fifty (50) Nests inside.

Either method outlined above requires that you use some sort of labelling system. This could be anything from parents names and coat to everything you can think of. In Second Life both Object and Inventory folder can have sixty-three (63) characters in their names. Technically sixty-four (64) according to the wiki. That limitation makes it quite a challenge to pack all of the trait information associated with any Meeroo into the label. Remember that this would not be alleviated by making the Nests re-nameable since they would still be limited to the same number of characters as any container Prim or folder.

So what information do you need in the label? That is up to the individual breeder but I do have some suggestions and reasoning for why:

Parents Names: You want to be able to quickly tell if Meeroos are related to each other because they can not breed with siblings. Also most breeders will be looking for specific offspring from particular pairings. So parents names are pretty much a must.

Coat: Coat is important enough you are going to want to know what it is without having to check the website or rez the Nest.

Eye Stats: Again, important enough that you want to know quickly. I include the Diurnal and Clear/Dusty in this since they are associated and also vital statistics.

Gender: Obviously, for breeding, this is very important. Make sure to include the gender of your nest in the label.

Personality: Even though I have my Meeroo folders as sub folders in an Inventory folder of their personality type I still include it in the label so I can easily verify they are in the correct folder and nothing is amiss. Also good for when I trade Nests with my partner, makes it easier to place the Nests in the correct folder.

Size: Size can be compressed somewhat as I will explain below, a very important stat to have in the label.

Nest ID#: Do not leave the Nest ID# off the label! It is very important. You will want to be able to correlate your Inventory with the spreadsheets you can obtain from the WW of Meeroos website, so you need the ID# visible. Also you want to verify that you have the correct Nest in each folder. I know I sometimes accidentally drag Inventory items to unknown places in my Inventory when attempting to move them or even rez them InWorld. If you mistakenly move one to another Meeroo folder you will immediately be able to determine which Nest is in the wrong folder. Also searching for the ID# will bring up both the Nest and its intended storage folder so it can be placed back where it belongs. There are so many things you need the ID# for, make sure it is in your label somewhere.

Special Traits: The vast majority of Meeroos, right now, are normal everything, for special traits. that is they have normal ears, normal tails, normal heads and normal fluff. In the case that a Meeroo has no special traits of those types I leave that information blank. it saves a lot of space in the label. You can assume that any Nest that has no special ear-tail-head-fluff indicators has all normal for those traits.

I did not include Generation above because I do not, currently, find it useful to have. Label length is already an issue so I leave off any data I do not absolutely require quick access to. If you use Generation data then make sure you include it in your labels.

You are going to have to abbreviate some of the data to make it all fit in the label. Even if your Meeroos all have three (3) letter names you will run out of space trying to cram to much data in. For coats I stick to the first five (5) to seven (7) characters of the type. So you get things like: Wine, Ursine, High etc... I do not have loads of special traits so I have not assigned abbreviations to them all. Just remember to pick something you will remember that is short and can be easily searched. I am going with things like "SUE" for Short Upright Ears and ST for Short Tail. Size information can also be compressed. I use one (1) or two (2) letters for the size tiers (i.e. TC = Tea Cup, TY = Toy, S = Small ...) The only sizes that share a letter and need two (2) are Tea Cup and Toy. All the other sizes have unique initial letters. You then only need the whole part of the size number to indicate the exact size. So TC0 is a Tea Cup 0.0 where as a TC1 is a Tea Cup 1.75. There are no duplicate whole numbers in the sizes so that is enough to be determinate.

Finally I will show you an example, the label format that I have come to use. Keep in mind it is still a work in progress. I use so many different separators in the label to make searching for specific traits easier. Instead of searching for "TC0" when I am looking for a Tea Cup 0.0 I can search "}TC0" and it is very unlikely there will be anything matching that pattern in my Inventory that is not a Meeroo Nest. Ok so, the label for the following Meeroo:


Meeroo: Eve
Species: Gael Meeroo
Coat: Highland
Head: Normal
Eyes: Monsoon/Diurnal/Dusty
Hair: Fluff Only
Ears: Normal
Tail: Normal
Gender: Female
Personality: Friendly
Size: Toy (3.5)

is:

Korrupt+Emily=High[]Monsoon.D.D{F/F}TY3,1017717

The space between the [ and the ] is where special ear-tail-head-fluff data would go if present. If she was also short eared it would be [SUE] and if short ears and tail would read [SUE-ST]. Again, using all the unique separator characters is to make searching Inventory easier, for me anyway. Search is blind to case, so "SUE" is the same as "sue" when you are looking for something. I might have items in Inventory with the word sue in them, or with those three (3) letters as part of their name. It is unlikely I have anything in Inventory with the string "[SUE" in it that is not a Nest, nor the string "-ST" if I am looking for a multi-trait Meeroo with a short tail. Remember that in order for that to work properly you need to pick an order for special traits and always list them that way. I have decided on the form I have used here: ears-tail-head-fluff. The data between { and } is first Gender and then Personality. So you can search for all female Meeroos with the search term "{F/".

No matter what you do keeping track of your Meeroos can be complicated and time consuming. It is all worth it in the end, but it can be frustrating in the meantime. The only other option I am aware of is leaving all your Nests rezzed InWorld all the time. This both uses up a lot of Prims and makes searching your Nests impossible. You have to manually check each one, even if they are placed according to a plan it is more complex than I can maintain. That is why I had to come up with a system for putting them in Inventory [Actually my partner scarlett gave me the idea of using hierarchical folders instead of Prims, thx sweetheart]. Assuming we do get the option to rename Nests at some point any label system you decide to use should still work fine. You would just transition from using Prims or folders to store Nests in to directly naming them with the label and then taking them into Inventory. So long as the rename function supports the maximum name length for an Object [63 letters] it should accept the label without issues.

Hope some of this helps you get your Nest inventory under control. If you have a method you think works better or just one you would like to share drop me an IM and if it is cool I will do a follow up post with ideas other people have had for organization. If you have noticed any flaws or errors above also please let me know before I label to many more folders ;)

An Eye for an Eye, a Nest for a Nest...

Meeroos have been under siege lately. Between scam artists placing fake food vendors over real ones at the store, Meeroos Resident getting banned, and the database going down it has been rough going for Malevay Studios. For the most part they have done a fantastic job of dealing with multiple simultaneous catastrophes. Yes, tickets are a bit backed up. That is to be expected when a lot of things go wrong at once. No company can afford to keep enough Help Desk type staff on payroll for a situation that only occurs once or twice a year. Does not stop it being very frustrating if you are waiting on a CSR, but things are getting done and they will get to you.

I know that databases go down, computer software of all types goes down, I accept that. I do not think anybody expects such things to be perfect. We know the Meeroos database can go down for awhile because it has, three (3) times in recent history. The first was unintentional, the second two planned. No problems there at all. Unfortunately these longer-than-normal database outages caused a, currently, unfixable issue: the infamous "Baby Ready" Nests.

A "Baby Ready" Nest (Hereafter BR Nest) is a Nest created during one of the periods where the database was offline. Instead of the normal float text explaining what type of Meeroo the Nest contains they have only the parents names and the words "Baby Ready" [See: photo above]. Touching a BR Nest will bring up the normal Nest menu with options for Coax, etc... It does blank the HUD as there is no information present about the Nest. If there is no ID# associated with the Nest, which there will not be if it is a true BR Nest, there is no way to get the statistics of the Meeroo within.

You have, apparently, two (2) options: 1) You can Coax the Nest and find out what sort of Meeroo it is. Be sure to Coax near a Home stump, failing to do so can have consequences. This leaves you with a live Meeroo of course, which you may not want. It is the simplest option, it is what I have done and what I suggest. It saves bogging Team Meeroos down with even more tickets. Understandably some people have Nests in this state that they A) expect to be quite good Meeroos and B) intended to sell. My partner scarlett is in exactly that situation; she has a few pairs of Meeroos that reliably produce Teacups, mostly zero-zero (0.0) ones at that. They are of little use to us as we have used some of the offspring already and the ones she gets now are too closely related for breeding. So she wants to be able to sell or trade them, but there is no way of knowing what type of Meeroos the BR Nests contain. This also effects some breeding programs: our plan, in part, involves holding onto some Nests with specific traits to Coax later. Not knowing what sort of Meeroo it is makes that impossible, for a very small fraction of our Nests.

So, option 2) Submit a ticket via the WW of Meeroos website and they will "fix" it for you. This is the part I have some reservations about. I have myself encountered the fact that, right now, a Meeroo broken for any reason can only be replaced with a live Meeroo. This means if you have a broken Nest it can not be replaced with another Nest. I am not exactly sure what the CSRs are doing with these tickets, from what I understand they basically Coax the Nest for you. Making it the same as option one (1). The issue I have is that when a CSR says: file a ticket and we will fix it for you, I expect that means they can and will rectify the situation and put everything right. In this case that can not be done. A broken Nest can not be replaced with a fixed one, only a live Meeroo. As a parallel: If I bought a bottle of wine, and it turned out to be mislabelled, I would be rather put-out if I was told they could only replace it with a recently opened bottle. 

I do not mean to be negative about it. I understand that it was likely far more important to have the ability to replace live Meeroos than Nests. I can think of a lot more situations where a live Meeroo would be preferable, and only a handful where having the Nest option is really needed. I also know that there are more important things to focus on right this second. Stability and safety from scammers are more pressing projects. I hope that, in future, Team Meeroos will be able to delay Meeroos having Nests for the duration of planned database downtimes and that they will develop a method for replacing broken Nests, with Nests. 

I sometimes have to remind myself just how new Meeroos are. There are going to be things that are not perfect, if I had given up on Second Life after my first few lost Inventory folders I would not be writing this today. These problems were caused intentionally, and Team Meeroos is going to have to be prepared for that. When you are the best you become a target for people wanting to rip off your customers. In the case of the fake food vendors I believe in most cases, as it happened multiple times, they were reported and removed within 30 minutes and Malevay Studios even worked with people who got scammed to get them legitimate Meeroo food. The only reason I feel the Nest4Nest option is so vital is that it would solve most all of the issues that arise when the database does go down for any reason. I think most people will accept it as a part of Second Life so long as their broken Nests can be replaced. That makes the inevitable database failures much less painful.

Things like changing the way Nests communicate with the server and adding the ability to pause Nest creation during downtimes sounds like something that might require a general Meeroos/Home update. Everybody complains about those, even though it is a breeze with Meeroos. When an update is released there is also the risk of releasing new bugs or exploits. I think it probable a lot of testing will be done before one is released, and I do not want them to rush it. I am willing to accept that things are as they are, for now, and it is being worked on. Tiger says in a recent post: "I won't be able to build something that replaces broken nests with a new nest for awhile." So we know it is something that will be worked on when the time is right. We all just need to hold on while development takes place.

Team Meeroos has never let me down. Nearly every issue, every minor complaint I have even thought of they have either already fixed or said they will fix. I have no doubt there will be a stylish solution to the database/Nest problems as well. For now there is a fairly simple work around: if you know the database is going to be taken offline in advance you can set any Meeroos that might breed during that time to Market Mode and they will not breed. This could cause them to miss a breeding cycle. If you do not need to know what the Nest is, or are going to Coax it no matter what, you are best off just leaving them. I do not think it will be a frequent event.

I wish Malevay Studios all the best during this. Tiger tweeted that this past weekend was "...the most stressful weekend of my life." I feel for everyone who has to put in the long hours to sort all of it out. If you do have a ticket waiting I am sure they are processing them as fast as possible, do not give up hope. Finally, if you deal with a CSR make sure to take the time to say thank you. Maybe give them a little hug or something.

There are No Non-Starters

I found out recently that the term "non-starter" does not apply to Meeroos. With the exception of special Meeroos, like the Clover Open Beta gift Meeroo, you can get any Meeroo from a Nest bought from the Official Meeroos store. It only applies to released genetics of course but it means any Meeroo you can breed you also stand a chance, however small, of getting directly from the store.

I get the feeling some people are not pleased about it. I think many of us, myself included, have fallen into a trap of thinking that breedable pets have to be implemented in specific ways and have to do, or not do, certain things. Meeroos are challenging a lot of those assumptions. The sixty (60) day breeding period instead of a set number of offspring per Meeroo is very different, and it took a lot of us off guard. In practice I have not encountered any problems with it so far. While I was not enchanted with the idea at first; I accept now that it has pluses and minuses, and the pros are starting to outweigh the cons. More on that in another post. My point is: Malevay Studios is trying a different, new type, of breedable. There are going to be new concepts and they can be scary at first. Without change nothing would ever improve. Will having all traits available in starter Nests be an improvement? I think it could be.

Having the full genetic pool available in starter Nests provides a sort of pressure release valve for the secondary marketplace. Since all genetics are in the store there is always the chance of buying enough Nests to get one close enough. However that is probably impractical, especially if it is a rare Meeroo and you are on a limited budget. What it does mean is that anybody could get one, no matter how rare. Not only mega-breeders are selling uncommon Meeroos. People who started yesterday have the chance to birth a Koi Meeroo, right now.  Maybe they want to sell it, maybe without a monopoly on the market, they do not mind offering their Meeroo for a reasonable price. I am sure that some of the avatars who receive amazing second generation Meeroos will. If it works like I hope it does the open-genetics approach should moderate the extreme high end of the market.

I love that anybody has the same chance when they take the stroll [TP] over to one of the Meeroos stores to buy a Nest. If you have a hundred (100) Meeroos or none, when you buy that Nest it could be anything. It is like a classic mystery box that can contain any aspect of the game, in this case any type of Meeroo. Sure the players with more Meeroos can gain an advantage through breeding, that is part of the game as well. Through breeding you can create the exact Meeroo you want, over time, with a lot of effort (and fun!) At the store you can roll the dice and see what you get. Maybe something ordinary, maybe something amazing. For me it means, when I am out pricing Nests, I will balance the prices for known genetics against taking the risk on unknown genetics in the store.

I understand that for some people the open-genetics model is less than desirable. Especially for those who believe they need to protect their breeding lines. To them I would say: the rare breeds are going to be rare until, if possible, breeders establish genetic lines that consistently produce them. Then they will not be so rare anymore. A few people getting ultra-rare Meeroos from the store is not going to sway that balance much. Maybe not even enough to dampen exorbitant prices, as I hope it does. If you have, or are establishing, breeding lines now; they are still a worthwhile investment. The best way to somewhat predictably produce uncommon trait Meeroos is through breeding. Buying a Nest from the store is a random chance, nothing you could build a reliable business model on. Every now-and-then though, someone, maybe someone very new or someone about to loose heart, will coax a miracle Meeroo from a starter Nest. In my view that can only be good for Meeroos and for the community at large.

New Babies!

Loads of people having little Meeroo babies over the past few days, and of course continuing now! I have not yet had a nest yet myself; during the night I am sure. While I am sleeping they will be breeding. Hope to wake up to at least one if not two nests. scarlett however has had two nests already, one is pictured below. Now time to dream of Meeroos and hope for morning nests. Goodnight!