Clover: The Open Beta Gift Meeroo

The Open Beta gift has been sent out. If you have not received one yet, and you were in Open Beta, you should log on. It should be sent to you automatically. I am sure a CSR can assist you if that has not occurred. I have mine so I thought I would share some pictures and some thoughts. The gift is a free very special Meeroo: a Clover Meeroo of the Prism species. Interesting fact: one of the progenitor Meeroos, Dawnara is a Prism species Meeroo. She is the mother of all the Meeroos on the Grid right now!

Long before the Open Beta gift was released scarlett and I had a bit of a speculation over what it might be. We thought about what type of gifts would be better than others. We came to the immediate conclusion that we would be happy with anything. Any memento of our experience in Open Beta would be appreciated. We gained more from the experience than any item. We had a great time and learned a lot about Meeroos. We would have been happy with no gift at all.

 That being said, the prospect of a gift was exciting. We contemplated everything from some sort of "Thank You" certificate of participation to hang up on the wall all the way to, what we considered, a very high end gift: a free Meeroo. We even pushed our dream into fairyland by postulating that it could be a special type of Meeroo. Hopefully something that would not pass on to offspring, so as to keep it more fair for people who could not get into Open Beta. We were ecstatic to discover that, what we considered almost beyond wishing for, is exactly what Team Meeroos decided to do: give all Open Beta testers not only a free Meeroo, but a special one called "Clover!" I can not tell you how happy I am both with their decision and with my Clover Meeroo. Another point and another Thank You to Malevay Studios! Now on to the photos...

Thank you for looking!

Open Beta Gift?

There has just been an InWorld Meeroos Group notice with the picture below attached. The text reads "the beta baby Clover". It looks like this could be, in some way, the gift for Open and Closed Beta testers. In Group chat Mehgan Southmoor [Meeroos CSR] wrote: "ok gang that is Clover, he will be meeting our beta testers soon!! Keep an eye on the official blog tonight!!!" and to clarify "closed and open beta testers yes." There is a lot of speculation right now, will it be the chance to breed one, or will they be gifted directly to testers? Nobody knows yet, but we have been told to keep our eyes on the Meeroos Blog this evening, so I for one will be doing just that! Excited!

The Meeroos blog has been updated with more info, check out the new post HERE.

Thoughts as Open Beta Ends

As I write this it is less than 6 hours until the end of Open Beta. So far almost every blog post I have written has been about Open Beta and that is about to end. I am tempted to say that it is getting serious now, but I hope not too serious. Meeroos should be fun and I am excited about mine. I am not interested in being a mega-breeder or "winning" Meeroos. I just enjoy them. I have loved being a part of Open beta and would like to thank Breedables Inc. for writing the post that led my partner to the Meeroos site in time for us to join it.

Open Beta has been an eye-opening experience for me. This is the first time I have been involved in testing other peoples products in Second Life prior to release. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was surprised at some of the InWrold Group chat. Everyone has their own ideas about how things ought to be done, and team Meeroos needs all that input to improve their product. So I don't understand why there would be any problems. The CSRs have done an amazing job keeping Group chat defused and amicable. I have learned a lot from participating in it and have met some great people already. I can't imagine what Group chat will be like after the Official Launch, I hope those of us who participated in Open Beta will work together to keep it positive.

 I have enjoyed Open Beta enough that I am a bit sad it is over. It has been a bit of an elitist thrill to invite friends over to have a look at the Meeroos, friends not in Open Beta, and then have them go pre-order. I do not want to come across as gloating, I wish everybody could have been involved in Open Beta. I am pleased that my partner and I got the chance to be a part of it, we could easily not have been. I don't know what surprise Team Meeroos has planned for beta testers, but if it is an item of any sort: I will treasure it. Not because it is rare or worth anything, I hope they are no-trans if they are an object to render them un-sell-able. Instead I will keep it as a reminder of my time, of our time, in Open Beta. I am being overly sentimental I know. It is just the end of product testing. Soon the "for real" Meeroos will be upon us, literally. I have a good feeling about Meeroos, and about Malevay Studios. They do appear to have a plan in place. Who knows? I might not even like the plan. But they have a plan and I am encouraged by that. I like a company that has a course of action in place but still listens. If you have witnessed the changes to the way Meeroos work [Petting Distance, Chat Spam, HUD Memory Issues, etc...] you can tell they are paying attention.

An anecdote for you, to show how much attention they pay: In one of my blog posts I posted a picture of a deformed Meeroo. Nothing serious, although it was hilarious, the Meeroo fixed itself shortly after the photo was taken and had no further problems. I even marked the photo as being something temporary. It was not two days later that I got an IM from a Meeroos CSR telling me they had seen the photo and wondered if the Meeroo in it was ok. I don't know if the initiative to contact me came from the CSR or elsewhere in the company, but it shows somebody - probably a few somebodies - are paying a lot of attention.

I am a bit sad Open beta is over. I am a bit sad my Meeroos habitat is going to be empty until Wednesday. I am excited about Wednesday. I must not pre-order any more Meeroos, oh wait, can't afford to; problem solved. Soon we'll be setting up those Fellowships for real, building Regard for real, breeding Meeroos for real. Once again my Second life is filled with excitement and discovery. For Team Meeroos I have both high expectations and high hopes. I have already had countless hours of enjoyment from Meeroos and they are not even available yet.

If you want to order any more pre-order packs make sure you head over to the Oracle at Twas before Midnight tonight. Once the clock strikes twelve they are finished and you'll have to wait until the 21st, at 2pm SLT, to purchase any more.

End of Open Beta Announced!

Team Meeroos has announced the end of Open Beta, the dates for Pre-Order delivery and the Official Launch! Dates are as follows:

End of Open Beta: Midnight SLT, Saturday - May 14th [Today!]
End of Pre-Orders: Midnight SLT, Saturday - May 14th

Pre-Order Deliveries: 2pm SLT, Wednesday - May 18th

Official Launch: 2pm SLT, Saturday - May 21st

There are two (2) locations that will be available to purchase Meeroos at after the Official Launch on the 21st:

Twas: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Twas/93/71/131
Haute Couture: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Haute%20Couture/139/158/22

Note on Pre-Orders: It looks like they are going to use the same delivery system tested during Open Beta and you will need to log-on after 2pm on the 18th to be offered your pre-order Trunk. That means you will not get an offline notice about your Trunk being sent, it will not be delivered until you are online. Of course: make sure you are not in busy mode when it is offered!

I am really going to miss the Beta ones I have but I knew it would end soon and I am now uncontrollably excited about getting my "for real" Meeroos! This even makes the Blogger outage fiasco seem not so bad. Thanks again Team Meeroos.

So; if you are in Open Beta and have beta Meeroos out, they are going to sneak off to the wild about Midnight tonight. Take your pictures and say goodbye while you can. It is going to be pretty empty in those Meeroo areas for the next few days.

Now, must get a nap, then get InWorld and say goodbye to my Meeroos who are about to set out across the Grid in search of new adventures. I'll pack them a lunch...

From the most recent Meeroos blog post, by Catherine: "Release is the beginning of a magnificent, long term reveal of stories, lore and mystery that await your discovery. We're not making things up as we go along: The Meeroos have undergone a highly sophisticated story development well before we entered technical development. The Meeroos culture will impact how you play the game, and it will even take you to places you never imagined in the style of play. With what has been revealed in Beta, please know, you've not even scratched the surface."

Don't Pick Up Your Meeroos!

A warning from the WW of Meeroos InWorld Group:

[Sent aprox: 6:55am PDT]
Group Notice From: The Wonderful World Of Meeroos, Mehgan Southmoor
"Right now SL is having major issues causing many meeroos to get lost, please do not pick up any meeroos until the all clear is given"

I figure this is related to the issues Linden Labs is having with the asset servers. I suggest you follow the advice above and refrain from picking up Meeroos or taking them into Inventory. I would also suggest not rezzing any you may have in Inventory and take a miss on birthing nests for now. These problems could, in theory, impact them as well.

Note: The Grid Status post from LL claims the problem is resolved, but I intend to wait for the all clear from Team Meeroos before I resume any Meeroo related activities that involve the asset servers. They are obviously in a better position to know when things are going wrong and let us know about it than the Lab is.

I will keep an eye out for the "all clear" and will update this post when I see it!

UPDATE: All-clear has been given, feel free to resume your normal Meeroos activities.

Quick note on progress...

Looking over Tigers latest blog post there is one important item in-particular I am excited about, Tiger writes: "Still working on a V0.78 to go out sometime later this week with a few more improvements that people have been asking for." So there will be another update with even more of our ideas incorporated! I would love to know what suggestions he is going to implement.

The fact Tiger is still working to make sure the Meeroos are stable, even though they work pretty well right now, is encouraging. It is good to know there will be another cycle of upgrades and testing before they go live. I am glad to hear that the migration to new web servers went well. It sounds like Tiger feels there is enough processing power to handle the Official Release without any strain. Figuring out what kind of servers you need is one of the many things Open Beta trials are for. Team Meeroos needed better servers, Team Meeroos got better servers: sorted. Another job well done! My only slight worry is that the popularity of Meeroos, after the Official Release, has been under estimated; I think a LOT of people are going to want them. On-the-other-hand if Tiger says they have "...more CPU than I know what to do with atm..." I trust him.

HUD note: You should have a version 0.92 Meeroos HUD now, if you don't: make sure to pop your old one on next time you are InWorld to be offered the new one, or grab the new version from Group notices. No cosmetic changes but v0.92 fixes a memory issue in v0.91 that could cause freezing of the HUD. [I have never had any version of the HUD freeze]

In closing, I see the end of Open Beta looming in the distance, and none to far off. At the end of his dev blog post Tiger says "If all goes well this will be the final update before launch." Once v0.78 comes out we will be staring the end of Open Beta square in the face. Unless something goes very wrong it will be time to say goodbye to our wonderful Beta Meeroos and begin the lonely days, between the end of Open Beta and the start of Pre-Order deliveries, with no Meeroos scampering about underfoot. Πάντα ῥεῖ [Panta Rhei].

Some New Genetics

This new set of Open Beta Meeroos contains some traits, or if you prefer: genetics, that I have not seen before. These are some pictures I have taken of new traits I have found. I know I am missing some. If you have pictures you would like to contribute, please IM me. I have not taken pictures of all the eyes or coats because, well there are loads. I am just focusing on the non eye/coat variations. Hope you enjoy the pictures:

Canine Head [Canine foreground, normal in the background]

 Neck Ruffle, or whatever it's called

Short Tail

Short Upright Ear

Deformed (temporary)
[This Meeroo fixed himself without any help, I think he was just confused]

Trunk Deliveries are on!

The delivery of Open Beta trunks has resumed! I was, unfortunately, asleep when the go ahead was given so I missed out. I have since received my trunk and birthed my Meeroos, all 6, without any problems what-so-ever. It went very well according to the Meeroos blog with over 2,500 trunks sent out. That is no easy task and it is a big step towards the official release of Meeroos. I'd like to take a second to say thank you to everyone in Open Beta, and that is everyone no matter what opinions they hold. I want to thank you not because you are helping Malevay Studios, although that is great, but because in assisting them you are helping create a better product for us all. And by us all, I mean me. So thank you, the official release is going to be much smoother than it could possibly have been without our help. Of course I have to say thank you to Team Meeroos for all their coding and CSR work over the past few weeks, and for creating the Meeroos in the first place; I would be remiss if I left them out as they have done a fantastic job.

One note: it looks like most of the problems people are having now with their Meeroos are because they still have items from the Monday release. The Tuesday release trunk contains different versions of the Home Stump and Meeroos Nests, if you still have old Monday release items it is recommended you delete them and use only items from the Tuesday release as per this quote from the Meeroos blog: "We're only supporting content delivered this evening. We can't replace broken nests from last night, or stumps, or trunks. This was a complete do over, and the content from this release was much more reliable. The old content from last night that isn't working should be deleted. Please don't contact a CSR regarding content from last night; that includes nests, trunks and stumps. We must focus solely on content from tonight's beta release." I am not sure if there is a version number change between the two, my new stump appears to be v0.77. If you do have issues with the new content it looks like the correct way to report it is still directly to a CSR, in notecard form, with as much detail as possible.

There are some very cool new genetics, or at least traits I had not heard of before, in this new bunch. I am going to post a few quick pictures now and will try to follow up with another blog post tonight when I have photographed some more of them. If you have pictures, and don't mind me using them here, send them to me at: fosdagger@gmail.com. Please include your SL name and if you would like them attributed to you or not.

Here you go. These are all Meeroos I just got from the Open Beta Tuesday release [Captions refer to the photos above them]:

Near: Canine Head, Far: Normal Head

Near: Short Upright Ears, Far: Normal Ears

Short Upright Ears

Beta coat with facial tattoo (watermark) visible

Anybody know what is up with that neck ruffle thing on the one with the facial tattoo? Seen it on a few Meeroos but I don't see a listing for it on the HUD. Not sure what it is about. If anybody has any ideas drop me an email or an IM InWorld. I would love to know!

Trunk Deliveries Paused

Trunk deliveries have begun and, once more, been paused. Looks like there was a problem with the Meeroos server's firewall thinking it was under a DDOS attack from, well: the Meeroos themselves. This caused some issues that Tiger is hard at work fixing or has fixed. The CSRs InWorld do not have a firm time for when deliveries will resume, just "sometime this evening". They are waiting for enough people to be online and ready so that they can send out another large batch of trunks at once. This helps them test their servers.

Also it would appear that error reporting has changed somewhat. I believe we were originally told to report all Open Beta error on the Forums, but recently the CSRs have been putting the following in Group chat: "We are aware of the problems that you are all having right now we're very sorry, if you could please send a Note Card with your name and give as much detail as possible (ID#s and or names of any missing ), add a LM so if we need to fix babies and you arent online we can get there and if you have Ban lines or any security please add the CSRs to the allow list...Deliveries have been stopped for right now please read http://www.worldofmeeroos.com/node/1152" So it looks like, for now, you are supposed to send a notecard to a CSR if you have problems. Especially with disappearing ones or broken Meeroos. Please do your best to comply with what Team Meeroos asks in terms of reporting issues. If we get the reports to them in the way they prefer then they can get to them more quickly and process them faster. That means less time in Open Beta and more time with our real Meeroos! [And more problems / bugs fixed prior to release!]

I will update this blog again as soon as I find out trunk deliveries have re-commenced. Very much looking forward to it! You will have to have your new v0.90 HUD on to receive the trunk, so make sure you get one from the Group Notices and have it on before tonight!

Trunk delivery informational update!

Brand new blog post from Team Meeroos with specific times for Open Beta trunk delivery has been posted. The times below are for tonight, Monday May 2nd, 2011. A time-line: 

7:00pm SLT: Last Phase of Open Beta begins
8:00pm SLT: Attach your Meeroos HUD & Accept any HUD updates [Wear the updated HUD]
8:20pm SLT: Delivery of trunks [chests?] begins!

We have been asked to place and birth all the nests as quickly as possible once received. However for those of us outside the US this may prove difficult. While I would love to stay up until 4am to participate, I fear my bedtime falls much earlier when the kids have school the next day. And a nasty habit of waking up at 6am... But I will get my Meeroos placed and birthed at the earliest opportunity, I promise! The timing is intended to take advantage of Second Life's peak concurrency, when the highest number of people are logged on, which makes sense. Unfortunate for some of us, but best for the Meeroos overall.

On the Meeroos blog Catherine has written, once the deliveries arrive: "Begin unpacking your Chest as quickly as possible! (Remember, do not open the contents and extract to inventory, you'll break it!) Simply click on the Chest and unpack it from the dropdown menu that appears." So there you go :)

Some additional information: The petting range for Meeroos has been increased, which we knew, the new range has been confirmed as 3 meters. I don't know what it was before the update [1 meter?] but that feels more reasonable. There are a few projects Malevay Studios have in progress as well, they are:

>> A Mute button for HUD sounds.
>> A Redesign of the way you engage the Oracle.
>> Alternative sized HUDS for multiple UI Sizes.
>> Tiny Animations
>> Hovertext toggle on/off button on Meeroos

Looking forward to seeing the multiple sized HUDs and will be great to toggle the float text. Makes identifying a specific Meeroo in a crowd, um... flock, no, herd? Anybody know what a group of Meeroos is called? Going to need to look into that. If anybody knows... IM me, or comment.

Update: the following was just sent out as a Group notice InWorld:
We know for our European times, the release is unfriendly! Our intention is to release at peak time SLT (Or american west coast) and have it roll across the world so the  server experiences multiple  stress spikes. Each of you, no matter your timeszone, is valuable to this ongoing release! Thank you so much for understanding.

No Trunks yet...

No reports of Open Beta trunks being delivered yet. I am monitoring the situation by logging in frequently and, when InWorld, detaching and then re-attaching my Meeroos HUD every so often. I will let you know here as soon as I can confirm that the deliveries have begun.

I expect there will be a Group announcement as well, but those can be somewhat unreliable for me. Often: I just don't get them. If you have gotten your new trunk, or when you do: IM me InWorld and let me know, if you like. Again: as soon as I hear anything I will update this blog.

Let us hope it is not much longer. I am going into some serious Meeroo withdrawal! Go Meeroos!!

Meeroos Gone!

Oh man! It looks like every Meeroo on the Grid for Open Beta has wandered away! Don't worry, nothing is wrong. Well, not too wrong. As Catherine writes on their Blog: "...we left on our "Beta End!" switch that told the database to set Meeroos to the wild beginning today. Many people coming online today will find that their Meeroos have all returned to the wild with their families." She goes on to be very candid and forthcoming with this explanation and apology: "I'll be completely honest with you, this was our mistake. Please note, it was NOT our intention for it to happen this way, and we deeply apologize for the suddenness of it. We understand how shocking and confusing it was for many of you Meeroo Parents. Although our intention was to have them vanish to the wild, we wanted to provide you adequate time to say your good-byes and prepare for the inevitable." So it was just an accident.

I have to admit I was a bit worried when I got the offlines! I understand, these things happen, no big deal. It's Open Beta and we have known we were going to loose these little guys eventually. It is a bit jarring; which it is obvious Team Meeroos understands from the blog post. There is also an indicator of just how quickly endearing these Meeroos can be: I miss them already. I don't like that they are gone, and I want them back. How can they not be an amazing breedable if I feel this level of loss knowing they will be replaced on Monday? And yes, they will be replaced on Monday, May 2nd 2011, with updated versions!

I've read through the changes they are making for Mondays release, and it looks good. Some of the most mentioned topics I saw on the Forums are in there, including my personal favourite:

>> Meeroos petting distance increased! No more having to chase!

and the rest:

>> The Seasons displaying ---- has been being removed and replaced with text better indicating a Meeroo's status. 

>> Breeding time has been shortened once again. They'll be mature at 5 days old, and will have entered their first season by 7 days old.

>> Fix for Fellowship set Meeroos who are hopping around stumps set to fellowship stumps belonging to another member. "Home hoppers" as i like to call them!

>> No more spam! Every time a region would restart all the Meeroos would IM or email their offline owner to say they're going for a wander! We've reduced how often Meeroos contact a user.

I don't see any info about changing anything appearance related, so I would expect everything to look pretty much the same after the Monday release. I am pleased about that as I think everything looks amazing as it is. I am in the "big fan of the HUD" camp, so I hope it hangs around in something similar to its current form for awhile.

Fellowships and Regard will NOT be reset on Monday. So you will still be in your current Fellowship and your Regard will also remain intact. In fact it appears that you can continue to answer Oracle questions during this time and accumulate extra Regard while the Meeroos are away.

So, panic over. Everything is all right with Meeroo kind, well except that nobody has any Meeroos. It is going to be a long wait until Monday. I'll try to keep busy, maybe a little scripting, update my Meeroo finder a bit so it'll sort the list alphabetically [Don't fret, it will always be free]. Maybe read a book or two. But I'll make time, and perhaps some of you will do the same, to say a belated good bye to: Smeego, Minni, Lope, Blonk, Jimp and the single un-named Meeroo. I wish you well in the wild. Come visit home some time.

Extra Home Stump & Food from Team Meeroos

Team Meeroos, AKA Malevay Studios, has started sending out those extra home stumps and food to everyone in Open Beta. You should get yours shortly after logging in if you are wearing your Meeroos HUD. If you are InWorld I imagine detaching and re-attaching it would also work. The items come in a nifty egg basket pictured below (thank you scarlett Tamura for the picture).

The egg basket also contains a bonus surprise: a firefly generator. All nice and Copy/Trans, to help create that perfect mystical Meeroos atmosphere for your Meeroos home area. I am even impressed with the designs on the eggs! See, I told you everyone would get more food! Nothing to worry about. Now I just have to wait till they can breed...

As an aside, I have created and released a Meeroo finder to help locate lost or hiding Meeroos. It gives you their SLURL* instead of using particle beams, so you can TP directly to the Meeroo you want. Prolly easier to do that if their movement is set to OFF, but it gets you in the general area in any case. It is called "Where Is My Meeroo?" and the current version is 0.1.0beta, yes beta, please comment nicely! It's available on the Marketplace (SLX) and is Modify/Copy/Trans except for the script which is No-Modify/Copy/Trans. If you are interested: have a look HERE and let me know what you think. Preferably here not on XStreet, but is up to you. I'll try to incorporate any suggestions I can. [It also chats their ID# even if you have changed their name]



*To use the SLURLs: Open your local chat window. The SLURLs should be displayed in a different color. When you click on one it will open the TP window and allow you to teleport to that location.

Food bowls & Open Beta information

I noticed something awhile ago that I have been meaning to mention here on the blog. One of those little touches that improves the realism of the Meeroos experience. What I saw was the level going down over time in the food bowls. When I first put it out the top was domed and now, after some has been eaten, it is caved into the bowl. I hope that, when empty, the bowls will look empty. It is that sort of thing that I love about Meeroos. I wish I had thought to take pictures when the dishes were full, but had no idea they would be so cool. If anybody has some, you could send them too me... [If it is OK to post them here, of course]

There is also Open Beta news: It looks like Open Beta will continue for at least the next two weeks, as of Saturday April 23rd, 2011. So by my calculations that makes it about May 7th. That does not sound like a fixed date, but and estimate only. Something else very exciting, it has been confirmed that we will get to breed the Open Beta Meeroos! I am quite pleased about that, and looking forward to it. You can expect to receive an additional stump as well. I assume this will be for baby Meeroos. However that is only my own conjecture. Also: you will get more food, so no need to worry about that. Stay calm.

One final thing, yet another move by the Meeroos Team I am impressed with: There will be no Official Meeroos stores associated with any market or non-neutral location. Basically there will be only one Official satellite store and it is in a neutral Region. I applaud that decision as a declaration of their impartiality which, much like justice, must be seen to be done. +1 more for team Meeroos!

Update v0.76 for stumps

There is an update out to fix crashing stumps. The update will take your Meeroos home stump from version 0.75 to version 0.76. The update process could not possibly be simpler. I am blown away with how much easier this update is to apply than any other breedable update I have ever done.

If you did not get the Group notice about the update (I did not: IMs capped) just pull up your Groups list and select the WW of Meeroos Group and click the "Group Info" button then go to the "Notifications" tab (I suggest sorting by date) and scroll down a bit you will see the notice with the updater Object attached. Select that Notification and hit the "Open Attachment" button and poof! you will have an updater stump in your Inventory.

Once you have your updater go to your current home stump and rez the new update stump next to it. [Make sure you are wearing the correct Group tag for the land you are on] The new stump will find the old one and, I love this part, moves itself to exactly where the old one is and then deletes it. The new stump then takes over for the old one and begins updating all your Meeroos. It took less than 5 minutes to update all 8 of my Meeroos, probably less than three but I forgot to time it exactly. In any case it is quick and painless. I have never updated anything in Second Life this easily before. It is essentially fully automated once you drop the updated stump!

Here is the text of the InWorld Group notice about the update:

Please read the following instructions very carefully, so you can update your Meeroos. This is an important update and MUST be carried out as soon as possible.

This update will fix stump crashing issues.

Rez the updater next to your stump. Your stump will update and then one by one your Meeroos will update. Please do not pet them, click them or attempt to attach them until the update is finished.

Once finished your Meeroos will be updated to 0.76 as will your stump.  IM a CSR if you need help.

Keep up the fantastic work team Meeroos!

Pictures and stuff

Meeroos: Best breedable ever or best breedable possible? Not sure yet, but I am impressed with what I see. I have some pictures for you of these adorable little guys and a little bit more. First off the team at Malevay Studios [Meeroos creators] have set up two sticky topics on their forums to address likes and dislikes. I encourage you to have a wander over there and let them know what it is about the Meeroos you do and don't like. This is the only way they will be able to improve their product, if it can get any better... Just remember to be constructive, or at least polite, in the dislikes thread. Just complaining is unlikely to get much done. There is at least one post in that thread right now that makes little, if any, sense to me. I bet the staff deal with tools way better than I would. More credit to them!

Thread links:
Likes and Dislikes  (You will need to be logged in to view/post)

Now some pictures to keep you oooooohing and all that:

Hope everyone out there who has them is enjoying their Meeroos as much as I am. My only issue is: I am becoming too attached to the ones I have now and I know they will poof and the end of Beta. Why did I name some? Why? :)

Open Beta trunk delivery round 2 has been paused!

I have now both received and birthed all 6 of my Meeroos and they are amazing! However, if you have not gotten yours yet: deliveries have been paused again. The load on their server is not high enough to test it so they are waiting until more people are online to resume sending trunks out. Unfortunately that may well be in the middle of the night for those of us in Europe/UK, somehow I don't think people are going to have a problem staying up [see: Coffee], unless they have work tomorrow... (Just quit, or call in sick with Meeroo fever!)

The text of the Group notice:

[19:59] Levio Serenity: Group Notice: Trunk Deliveries Paused|Sorry, but things are going good. TOO GOOD.  There isn't a huge demand on the server (it's yawning at me) so we're going to postpone trunk deliveries until later today we can resume and try to spike the server with another big blast of fluffy Meeroos all at once.

TY for your patience with the process!

Once I get done petting and looking at my Meeroos I will get some pictures posted as well as a bit more useful info, if I have any. Good luck to all of you still waiting for your Meeroos and I am excited for all of you who have them now!

Note: I have not had ANY issues rezzing or birthing my Meeroos but my partner has; her home stump is showing duplicates of all her Meeroos. [See Edit below] Remember if you do have any issues: use the Meeroos Forum to report them. That is what Open Beta is for, finding bugs and issues that got missed before. If you find an issue and don't report it, well, it might not get fixed. That being said: Cut the CSRs in Group chat a little slack, they are busy. And please let's try to be civil with people in Group chat as well. Not everybody knows what is going on and many people are a bit confused. Really no point in attacking people for their questions who may, a month from now, be your customers at your Meeroo store or in your fellowship helping you out. Everyone asks uninformed questions sometimes, best to provide information not ad hominem slights. See you all in Group chat.

Edit: Ok, so the float text on the stump actually displays your Male Meeroos on the left followed by the Female Meeroos they are compatible with! So it is, in fact, not duplicates. It might be a bit confusing since the float-text can get truncated in length and so you might not see it all.

Also:

There does not appear to be any way to edit or delete your Forum posts from the Meeroos site, so I am not sure what to do if you have reported a problem but then realize it is not one. I am sure the Meeroos staff will sort it out. Don't let it put you off reporting issues, they can ignore ones that turn out not to be. Now, back to playing with Meeroos!

Open Beta trunk delivery round 2 has begun!

As per the WW of Meeroos Group announcement:

If you've been waiting for your trunk still, now is your turn to grab yours! Detach and reattach your HUD if you've not gotten a Delivery.

If you are InWorld right now you will need to detach and then re-wear your Meeroos HUD v0.89. Once you do that, or on login if you are not InWorld now, you should get a message that looks like this:

WW of Meeroos HUD V0.89: The Oracle has sensed your presence online. Queueing your Open Beta Trunk for delivery. Please remain online and ready to accept it!

Once you get that message your trunk should be offered within a minute or two, mine and my partners were. Just waiting for peace & quiet IRL to rez our trunks and see what Meeroos have to offer! More here soon.

Trunk deliveries have begun, and stopped...

The delivery of Meeroo trunks had begun, apparently before midnight SLT (circa 2:57 UTC) which was a surprise. Unfortunately their server is having some issues and deliveries have been suspended. It looks like you should NOT rez/open your trunk if you have gotten one. [I have NOT seen any all-clear-to-rez messages yet] The issues are not with sending out the Open Beta trunks but with the load associated with the mass birthing of Meeroos, from what I gather via Group chat and the notices. As you can see from the last Group notice (below): trunk deliveries should re-start sometime this morning (SLT I assume?). I am guessing they will issue the "all-clear" to rez Meeroos either prior to that or at the same time. See below for a complete list of Group notices sent about the Open Beta trunk delivery event:

[03:57] Catherine Farspire: Group Notice: Detach - Reattach HUD|Many packages have arrived from a mysterious island, and each one of them are destined for doorsteps around the grid. Yours is on it's way, so at this time, please detach and reattach your v0.89 HUD, a surprise awaits you!

[04:31] Catherine Farspire: Group Notice: Errors|As this is beta, we understand that many of you are experiencing database communication errors when birthing, having blue glowing meeroos, hatching nests, duplicate meeroos and trunks or meeroos vanishing! This IS what we wanted to see, so we could gauge bandwidth usage and impact on server, and consequences of such a load. Please do not worry. These error will be remedied!

[04:38] Catherine Farspire: Group Notice: Pre-Orders Temprarily disconntinues|Pre-Orders are temprarily discontinues until we sort our database issues. Please do NOT birth any more meeroos until we give you the all clear or risk losing them.

[05:00] Catherine Farspire: Group Notice: That's What beta is For|In order to ensure we provide the best quality experience for our customer at launch, we must go through this beta stress test. We know it is an inconvenience and a challenge, but it is necessary for us to be able to optimize our system. We will discontinue trunk release until tomorrow as we tweak some coding on the back end to ensure prompt and seamless delivery on the second try! Thanks allf or working with us!

[05:44] Catherine Farspire: Group Notice: Make sure to check the forums!|The forums is a place where we collect and filter information as we trasition through these phases! Our forum moderator, Allatu Augustus is doing great at keeping things nice and tidy over there. While we work through this issue, you should head on over there and give her a warm greeing and a friendly smile! Also introduce yourself, read up on known issues and share your thoughts, concerns and ideas at http://www.worldofmeeroos.com

[06:03] Catherine Farspire: Group Notice: Lost Meeroos?|If you've lost meeroos, do not fret! Tomorrow our CSr's will whistle them back from you and retrieve them from the wild, but as a matter of priority, we need this time to potimise and improve our backend so the results of the next delivery are much improved.

[06:24] Catherine Farspire: Group Notice: Beta Distribution: Round 2|Tomorrow morning we will commence Beta Distribution round 2! If you have not gotten your new HUD 0.089 from notices, do so now. TRUNKS will not be distributed again until the morning so we can re-guage perfomance of our servers and the impact on them. If you have your meeroos, they will be fine! Please remember to use the forums for issues! 

Let's hope they get that server back online soon. I will keep an eye out for announcements on their blog. I really hope they update it to let us know when trunk deliveries have resumed as it can be inconvenient to stay logged in all day to follow Group notices... I will post it here as soon as I know myself :)

NOTE: In my experience you will not get any notification that your Meeroos are ready to be delivered or ready. You have to log in and, according to the Group notice, detach then reattach your Meeroos HUD. Of course this will only work if the server is up. I suggest detaching the HUD for no less than 10 seconds to allow the Linden Labs asset server time to process it properly.

Meeroos HUD Pictures

I took some pictures of the HUD to show what it looks like when open and when hidden. It feels good so far, it does use a lot of space when open; any HUD that displays a lot of data does though. And the important thing, that it gets out of the way when you don't need it, the Meeroos HUD does very very well. I love that it allows tab access to quickly open the HUD on the page you want even when it is minimized. The HUDs default attach point is HUD Top-Left.

Meeroos HUD Open

Meeroos HUD Minimized

Open Beta Meeroos have been announced for Monday if everything goes well with the HUD release. I hope it does go well because I am very excited about testing out the Meeroos themselves now! Bring it on!