The Trouble With Honey

I am a little concerned about MeePets, here is why: apparently they will still need to eat. As per Catherine's blog post: "It [the MeePet] will need to eat honey to thrive, and honey will be made available from the main stores for free." What this means is that a MeePet can not be kept in Inventory. Nor will it be easy to gift them to people who might want a pet without any hassle. They would still need to go to the store periodically to pick up food and keep the Meeroo rezzed almost all the time. Which brings me to the Prims issue: if they have to be rezzed to eat they are going to be using Prims and Home Stump slots as well. I was really hoping for a Meeroo I could wear; all of the time. A little fellow I could pop on my shoulder and just leave there but Meeroos do not eat when attached.

There is some hope however, the FAQ on the WW of Meeroos site says: "...this will mean that you no longer have to buy them food, and they will not starve or run away to the wild." [Emphasis added by me] I would be interested in some clarification on this point: can a MeePet starve, or not? According to the FAQ: No, they can not starve. Then why the requirement for Honey? Unless the eating of Honey is purely aesthetic and is optional. It might be nice for them to have their own food bowl they could nibble on from time to time, but it seems like a lot of work if they do not have to eat. If they are required to eat then I have to assume they could also starve, which is contradicted by the FAQ. Hence my, now abject, confusion.

I feel that for the MeePet option to be viable for any but my very best, most special, Meeroos it would have to allow them to be kept indefinitely. When Open Beta ended and everyone was waiting for their "Real" Meeroos I used the term "ForeverRoos" to mean the ones we would get to keep as long as we wished. For the MeePet option to validate the term ForeverRoos there has to be a guarantee that they will never be lost. Once the procedure is performed, in this case once the Honey Dipper has been used, they should have no further breedable-like requirements. For all intents and purposes they should act like a non-breedable, non-eating, pet. The resultant Meeroo should be able to stay in Inventory forever if need be and should not require anything else to  continue existing when rezzed. i.e. It must not require food, although optional food would be cool. If the MeePet option is implemented in a way that they still require feeding then it will not be of much use to me. I would very much like to keep quite a few of my current brood, but I have neither the Prims nor the Home Stumps to do so if they need to be rezzed like ordinary Meeroos.

I understand that the Honey will be free. There will be no charges for keeping a MeePet which is great. But if it can not go into Inventory, or onto my shoulder, then I am going to have a difficult time justifying the L$1,500 cost for the Honey Dipper. However if they genuinely can not starve and will never run away, then consider it justified and I'll be saving up to MeePet all of my favourites. We will all find out how it works soon enough, but if anyone who knows from Team Meeroos would like to comment in advance of release please leave a comment here or contact me InWorld.

[EDIT: As you can see from Tiger's comment below, this is now a non-issue, please have a look at my follow-up post HERE explaining how it really works.]