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.