The Pet-O-Matic!

The legal auto-petter has landed and it is known as the "Pet-O-Matic". If you have somehow missed the auto-petter drama here is a short history: In the beginning all was well and all Meeroo petting was done by hand. Dedicated Meeroos enthusiasts would pet each little fur-ball individually and thus gain Regard points for their pets. Unbeknownst to us, deep in the recesses of the secret Meeroos development cave, the WeeMee was being planned and balanced. It was intended to assist with the task of petting Meeroos and would require some upkeep or interaction itself as a reward. Before the WeeMee even saw what is outside the cave a third party created their own petting aid without balance; it could pet every Meeroo it could find every hour indefinitely without user interaction. I say created their own but the most important scripts, the ones that made it possible, were appropriated from Malevay Studios. They were not authorized to use the scripts they took in the way that they did. The scripts in the HUD are meant to stay in the HUD and removing them violated the Meeroos TOS. This threw the balance of the game out of whack somewhat. Players using the auto-petters gained inordinate amounts of Regard leaving the rest of us in the, somewhat cliche: dust.

The maker of the auto-petter was contacted and asked to remove the item, they initially agreed but then decided against it. So it remained on the market while a DMCA was filed and then it was removed by Linden Labs. Players using the auto-petter were not penalized or punished in any way. Almost immediately another version of the auto-petter surfaced which required the end-user to break the TOS by removing the vital scripts from the HUD and place them into the petter themselves. While some players were auto-banned as a result of it, as I understand it most if not all of them were un-banned eventually. Most did not realize that they were breaking the TOS and were simply following the instruction that came with their shiny new auto-petter.

Soon after that Catherine wrote a blog post notifying everyone that as of Monday the 5th of September all third party auto-petters would be illegal to use and doing so would result in penalties. There are three (3) penalty levels, as stated in THIS blog post they are: "We will issue a warning to any player found using it. A second offense will result in a reset of their regard total to Zero. A third offense will invoke a permanent ban from the game." And that was the end of non-TOS compliant auto-petters.

With Team Meeroos now back in control of the game all was, once again, well. Many players had become, dare I say "addicted" to their auto-petters and I understand why. While a novel and integral part of the Meeroos universe petting can get tiresome over time. From what Catherine has said it is now obvious that petting was never intended to be a large part of the game: "The acquisition was intended to be a casual game that provided small bonus benefits at milestone levels. The bonuses never guaranteed specific results or an endless streak of WIN!" While important for various reasons the most important in my view is the boost provided to breeding, the boost is not massive. While we do not know exactly how much of a push it is, or if its effect is even quantifiable, Catherine and Tiger have made it clear it is a "nudge" not a shove. That being said in an environment as competitive as Meeroo breeding some players feel it is important to have every advantage possible to maintain their edge over the competition. An not without cause, it is important to get the most out of your Meeroos. So we all want to pet but sometimes just do not have the time or patience to do so. The loss of a device that solved that problem was hard for those using them to accept.

In response to player requests for a legal auto-petter Team Meeroos made one for us and it is super fun. It does have many of the same features that the banned petters had but implemented in a better way. While the pet-o-matic is free it requires batteries to operate. These batteries come in various "sizes" and must be purchased from the Meeroos store or the Marketplace. This moderates their use somewhat. Although this does give an advantage to players with L$ to spend it is much better than the buy-once-pet-forever third party petters. I think the pet-o-matic is a stopgap measure, I would not be surprised to see it phased out when the WeeMee makes its way into the light of day. Yes, you read correctly: the WeeMee, once put on hold, has now been put back into development. Again this was done as a result of an outpouring of player requests for it. Having been told about it prior to the release of the pet-o-matic it became apparent that people were enchanted with the idea and wanted one, badly. Team Meeroos has responded and said it will be released. I am quite excited, I am interested in both how it looks and how it functions. Hopefully it will take us away from a L$ for Regard system that the pet-o-matic embodies. Like I said: do not be alarmed if the petter is depreciated when the WeeMee arrives, auto-petters were never intended to be a part of the game dynamic and I believe the WeeMee is intended to offer much the same benefit without unbalancing the game. Of course the WeeMee might be released without the petting function at all leaving the pet-o-matic in place, as is. I can not complain either way. That brings us up to now, we have the pet-o-matic and it is oven-gloving our Meeroos to Regard nirvana. Perhaps that history was not so short after all.

How does the pet-o-matic work? It can be a little confusing to piece together from the boxes and signs at the Meeroos main store. I think that time was the most important factor in creating the petter and some things got done in a big hurry. Completely understandable given the constant chorus of "we want our auto-petters back!" So I will attempt to make it simple as I am not under their time constraints.

The pet-o-matic has a 10m range. If you drew a circle around it with the edge of the circle being the extent of its range that circle would have a 10m radius and thus a 20m diameter, for the math geeks it covers an area of about 314sqm. It will pet every Meeroo within its range at whatever frequency you set it to, you can choose to include or exclude Meeroos set to your Fellowship but not owned by you. The frequency options run from four (4) times a day up to a maximum of twenty four (24) times per day. It takes batteries which come in a few sizes. The important thing to remember about battery sizes is that, like Meeroo food, you are actually buying a set number of pets per battery. All the boxes state the frequency setting you would need to use to have the battery last for one week, if you wish you can set the frequency higher and it will simply not last as long. The petter displays the number of pets remaining in float text when touched and on the drop down menu, as well as the time till the next petting event.

As far as I can ascertain to be pet the Meeroo itself must be within the range of the pet-o-matic when the petting event occurs. It is not enough to have their stump within range. I like to let my Meeroos roam a bit, all my Homes are set to a 4 meter wander range. This means that for me to be 100% sure all the Meeroos on one of my stumps will get pet: the Home needs to be at least four (4) meters in from the edge of the petters range. I ran some numbers and came up with the probabilities that Meeroos would miss getting pet if their Homes are not quite close enough. The graphic below provides a visual representation of the results. The percentage missed is the quantity of Meeroos who would most likely be missed on any given pet event. A Home with eight (8) Meeroos in residence on the edge of the petters range would, on average, have four (4) Meeroos receive a pet when the pet-o-matic triggers. The same Home at three (3) meters in would allow seven (7) of its Meeroos to feel the oven-glove during a pet event. Of course the best placement is to have the edge of the Homes range not exceed the range of the pet-o-matic whenever possible. The easiest way I have found to determine optimal placement is to build a twenty (20) meter diameter cylinder and flatten it down to look more like a circle. That will show you the range of the pet-o-matic. Position the cylinder where it reaches the most Meeroos and then copy down its coordinates. When you rez your pet-o-matic you can enter those numbers in the edit floater and it will snap to the location you have chosen.

There has been a lot of positive and a lot of negative comments about the pet-o-matic. Whichever way you feel: it is here for now and it is pretty cool (check out the battery changing particles when you add a battery), even if you hate the concept of it. I love mine, it really does almost sub-consciously relieve the pressure to pet my Meeroos all the time. I can get back to petting them when I feel like it without the worry that I am loosing out on something. I hope everyone sees the positives in time and if not, and you have decided you hate the pet-o-matic; do not give up hope. The WeeMee is still on the way, who knows what it might bring? You can always pet your Meeroos by hand, I do think they prefer it that way.

The Auto-Petting Zoo

I did not want to do a post on auto-petters or their effects on the game but after Catherine's last blog post, the one HERE, I feel like I have to. I would never have anticipated the scope and ferocity of the backlash  and what I have seen myself, only a small fraction of what Team Meeroos must see daily, saddens me. Malevay Studios has given us this incredible adventure. It is more than just a creature and some support props, this is the real deal: an immersive experience within Second Life, an adventure with a story and its own planned evolution. I think some people have become side-tracked with banalities and forgotten what Meeroos are all about.

I want to start by saying that I understand why people want auto-petters, I want one. I understand why people bought them, like I say; I want one. I do not hold anything against anybody for using one. Neither scarlett nor I have every used one and my reasons are simple: I have never thought that Malevay Studios endorsed or in any way was OK with them. I could not figure out how they worked, until the "Take-the-HUD-Apart-Yourself" one was released. Then it became even more obvious that it was not an entirely ethical product. I think it should set off alarm bells for anyone when a Creator asks you to dismantle another Creators product to make theirs work. That is akin to selling prefab houses and mentoring your customers in how to steal a door script or a window tint script from another vendor and use it in their new home. It is just not right. Not on the part of the customers who may not have known better, but certainly on the part of the offending Creator.

My general approach to creating and distributing Meeroos related products is that if I even suspect Team Meeroos would not approve: I do not offer it for sale. That is why I have never offered a Treasure Finder. I noticed shortly after Open-Beta the treasures were modified so that their name is no longer what type of treasure they are when they are just sitting around. If you touch one it reverts its name to "Rotten Banana" or "Tin Can" but for the rest of the time it is called something random "g7ie45" or the like. Well it may not be random, but it appears random to me. That was a subtle signal that Malevay Studios did not want third party Treasure Finders since they took steps to make creating them more difficult. I decided to spend my time developing other products and chilling with my Meeroos.

I do not understand the position some people have wherein they think that because a thing can be done it should be, or at least it is allowed or acceptable. Meeroos are not a secure system, they are not banking software, they are incredibly detailed and complex breedable pets, I am tempted to add: for crying out loud. Just because there are, or were, ways to hack the HUD and make it do things it was not designed to do does not make doing so permissible. While Malevay Studios is responsible for their product and keeping it fair for everyone, they should never be required to obtain perfection. The steps they have taken to protect their products, and their players, are sufficient; for me. Malevay Studios has a finite amount of resources, they have to allocate them to various aspects of the game. The more time spent perfecting the security of the software the less time spent developing new features and fixing non-security related bugs. Tiger has obviously spent some time on security to protect ethical players, who are the vast majority, from the unscrupulous ones. I think he has done a thorough job: all Meeroos products seem to be able to protect themselves and even auto-ban players who tamper with them. As new hacks arise they will have to be patched, that is the nature of any system humans will attempt to circumvent. But let us let Teem Meeroos focus on the Meeroos. How many un-patched security exploits are present in Windows today? Can anybody even count that high? In my opinion Catherine and her team have a firm grasp on the relative importance of various exploits/bugs/features. I trust them to triage new threats appropriately and will leave them to it.

What can they do now that the damage is done? I am still saying "What damage?" myself, but perhaps I just see things a bit differently, or am less effected than others. I know there are now two (2) tiers of players when it comes to Regard: those who utilized the auto-petters when they were under review and those who did not. There are some players in that top tier, the one with the auto-petter users, who have never used one. Some players I have talked to gained incredible amounts of Regard through completely legitimate means. I know one woman who was setting her alarm clock every four (4) hours just to log on and pet her Meeroos. That is devotion. I want people to be aware that when they talk about dealing with people with extraordinary Regard that group includes players who gained Regard without effort and players who worked hard for every point, gave up sleep, gave up their L$ and their time to gain those points. I know Team Meeroos has considered how  their choices in this unfortunate circumstance will effect those players, I hope everyone does.

I had someone tell me in group chat the other day that Regard is now worthless. I disagree. For one it still has the same effect on breeding, giving higher Regard players and Meeroos a nudge in the rare traits direction. That will soon be enhanced when the Regard level cap is raised to thirty-five (35). As I recently discovered the breeding boost is dependant on the regard level you are on, not the number of Regard points you have. Once a player reaches level twenty-five (25) they have achieved the maximum boost currently possible. Having millions of additional points has no effect other than shooting you to the top of the levels any-time the level cap is raised. Malevay Studios has even addressed that issue, and levelled the playing field more, by saying that after the cap is raised this time Regard points themselves will be capped when you reach the maximum level [in this case level 35]. That means that nobody will have an insurmountable advantage when the next level cap increase occurs.

Catherine says they are looking at ways to re-balance the game, and revitalize Regard. Will their solution be perfect? No, I doubt it. The damage, what there is of it, has been done and done intentionally. Remember that disrupting the game and its mechanics was the aim of the extortionists. They found a tiny crack and did their level best to pry it open. I feel they failed and Team Meeroos has prevailed. They are clearly going to great pains to make whatever they put in place as fair as possible to all players. They have shown that they are listening and understand by putting the Wee-Mee back into development and working to release their own stop-gap auto-petter. Both much requested by the community, myself included. I totally need a Wee-Mee in my life, well Second Life.

The way Catherine ends the blog post referenced at the top makes me sad because I wish life were not like this. I wish everything directed at Malevay Studios, and any creator, was positive. Even criticism can be stated in a positive, or at the very least impersonal, way. I find it is best received in that form. Sometimes tempers will flare and one might misspeak, or go on a tirade in anger. That I understand, and the more responsible among us generally apologize for and retract words they do not mean. The length and breadth of the rants I have seen over the auto-petter issue boggle my mind, some of them are beyond reason altogether. That same final paragraph also gives me great hope as well, it tells me that my faith is fortuitously placed as Catherine says: "Whether we have 5 or 5,000 people with us on this adventure, our path won't change. We'd rather have five of you with us enjoying what we do, then 5,000 people who don't and make us miserable because of it. We're going to fight to maintain our vision, because, at the end of the day, it is ours." Bravo Catherine. I concur with your sentiment one hundred percent. To anyone who said "You killed your game" I say to you: you must have overlooked a few of us; scarlett and I are still right here. Meeroos are far from dead, they are after all immortal. I can not promise I will be in the final five (5) players but if it comes to that: I intend to be.

Regarding Regard

I get asked a lot of questions about Regard. It can be a confusing part of Meeroos if you do not understand it. Trust me, it is easier to grasp than you think. There are three (3) entities that can gain Regard: Avatars, Meeroos and Fellowships.

Fellowships are the easiest to explain, they gain Regard from their Members. When new Members join a Fellowship some of their Regard is counted towards Fellowship Regard. You do not loose any Regard by joining a Fellowship but the Fellowship does gain Regard, if you have any. When an Avatar switches Fellowships their Regard goes with them to the new Fellowship. Fellowship Regard will be used to unlock items for purchase in the Meeroos Store, when it is complete. I do not yet have all the details on how that will work. Catherine has said that Regard is not "spent" so unlocking will be achieved by reaching a certain amount of Regard, not trading in Regard to unlock. This means neither personal, nor Fellowship Regard will ever go down; unless a Member leaves a Fellowship taking their Regard points with them and reducing Fellowship Regard overall.

Meeroos can gain Regard in two (2) ways: By being petted and by having Nests. Meeroos can gain ten (10) Regard points every hour by being pet. You can pet your own Meeroos or other people can pet them for you. In either case they will gain the same ten (10) Regard points per hour per petting. If you are petting your Meeroos and notice that they are not gaining the points: they may have been pet by someone else less than an hour ago. I always look at their float text to determine if they are gaining Regard when petting as the HUD can take awhile to update. The maximum Regard to be gained by this method is, of course, 240 Regard points per day, if your Meeroos are pet every hour on the hour. Meeroos also gain three hundred (300) Regard points every time they participate in creating a Nest. Both the Male and the Female gain the bonus.

When Meeroos are Released all their Regard goes to the Avatar who Owns them at the time they are set free. A Meeroo with five hundred (500) Regard will give all of those points to his or her Owner upon Release. Even Meeroos who can no longer breed have considerable value in Regard points.

Avatars gain Regard in three (3) ways: Releasing Meeroos as stated above, Petting Meeroos that belong to other Avatars and Collecting Treasures. Every four (4) hours you can pet ten (10) Meeroos you do not own to gain one hundred (100) Regard points. In theory you could gain six hundred (600) Regard points per day by doing this. If you managed to make it online every four (4) hours. Is a bit reminiscent of pressing the button in the hatch every 108 minutes. Not really, but that would be a lot of logging on instead of sleeping. You can collect the Treasures your Meeroos dig up as well. It seems like the first time you collect a special Treasure you get ten (10) times its normal point value. For example, the first time I found an Eagle Feather I received five hundred (500) Regard points, subsequent feathers have garnered only fifty (50) Regard points each. Still a decent amount, I am not complaining.

What good is Regard? It increases the chance of rarer offspring from your Meeroos when they breed. In some un-revealed combination, both Player Regard and Meeroo Regard play a part in unlocking rare Meeroo traits and throwbacks. The higher your personal Regard is the better Nests you will get. The higher your Meeroos Regard is the better the Nests they will have. You can see how important it is to pet your own Meeroos and to encourage people who may be around to pet them if you are not present. If you have a partner who is not into Meeroos, or friends who stop by, give them a Meeroos HUD and ask them to have a pet of your Meeroos if they have time. It is fun for them and the Meeroos will gain valuable Regard that improves your chance of awesome Nests.

I think gaining Regard from petting other peoples Meeroos is a brilliant way to encourage players to interact. My partner has enough Meeroos that I can pet ten (10) without leaving our Meeroos area. But I still like to get out to see what sort of areas other people have and to pet their Meeroos. A side effect of the petting for Regard part of Meeroos is that most Meeroos habitats are very friendly and welcoming of strangers. Still, ask before you decide to use someones sky box as your personal petting paradise, unless they have posted that it is OK. I have a post on this blog with some locations listed, including my own, that encourage you to stop by and pet their Meeroos. If you need to find Meeroos to pet to make your ten (10), have a look.

If you want to try and maximize your Regard petting I have, ahem, scripted something to help. It is a HUD timer that keeps track of both the four (4) hour delay until you can gain more Regard for petting others Meeroos and the one (1) hour delay before any Meeroos you have pet will be able to gain Regard again. It comes with an InWorld base unit that can email or IM you at the end of the four (4) hour cycle when you can gain regard again for petting MeeroosMeeroo food somehow, but I think reasonably priced at L$50, it comes with free updates for life and is Copy/Mod/No-Trans. Have a look on the Marketplace if you are interested: bit.ly/RegardTimer.

Pet-able Meeroos Locations

I know many of you have been looking for places to pet other peoples Meeroos and many people have been looking for a place to list their location so people can do exactly that. It is a win-win situation: the Avatar doing the petting gains one hundred (100) regard points for petting ten (10) Meeroos they do not own and each Meeroo who gets petted receives ten (10) regard points in their personal regard pool. Everybody gains something and you get to go out and explore the Grid to see Meeroos that have traits you may have never seen before.

Since I have not seen any such place to list locations yet, I will offer one here. I'll start it off by listing my own Meeroo habitat SLURL [It is a work in progress, pretty barren at the minute.], if you would like to list yours here: IM me, or email me or whatever and I will get it added. If you want to be quick you can just leave a comment and I'll get it from there [Make sure you let me know who you are!]. Everything is going so well with the little guys; lets try to get as many petted as possible! [Remember: you do need a Meeroos HUD to interact with (pet) them.] 
 
Pet-able Meeroos Locations:
Fos Dagger & scarlett Tamura's Meeroos: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cotis/205/228/99/

The list of pet-able Meeroos locations has been moved HERE to make it easier to update and find. There is a link on the right hand bar under "Pages" as well.

If anybody is interested in listing their Fellowship that is looking for members that would be fine too. Just send me the name of the Fellowship and the SL name of the contact person who can add people. Keep in mind that for this to work I do have to list both, and you might end up getting a lot of requests to join [I will verify the request with the Contact person InWorld prior to listing]. If you do list here and your Fellowship hits its maximum Member count please let me know and I will temporarily un-list it until you need more members again. Once more I'll start it off myself, with my partners Fellowship:

Fellowships looking for Members:
"Midnight Meeroos" Contact: scarlett Tamura