Meeroos!

Cute and totally irresistable. BUT... I'm going to resist until I know a little more. I AM! I have to keep telling myself that a LOT. I better find out what I want to know fast before I just happen to come home with one. They REALLY are irresistable :)

They launched on Sunday and I bet they are already all over the grid.

I've tried to gather some facts for myself that I will share on this page. The official page is here.

There is some nice lore about them being discovered in the 1930's. Haven't studied that much, since it's not that interesting unless you actually get into it. But it does give a nice touch and the story seems to promise a lot more to be discovered.

I've read the FAQ and watched all the tutorials to get an idea of how it works. Doesn't look all that complicated, just enough to make it interesting. The video tutorials are very good and easy to follow.

They sleep when it's night in SL

I've registered on the webpage so I can see how customers are treated by the owners and each other. I care a lot about that. I'm in SL to have a pleasant time. Don't want to see group chat full of bureaucratic or condescending remarks flickering across my screen as soon as I log in. So far it's looking good, mostly nice people. The tone will be set by the creators/owners so I'll keep an eye on how that develops. I've met some very helpful people asking around today.

I like how it's based on cooperation in fellowships. You can create or join fellowships to help each other out with petting the Meeroos or looking after them. And you can mate your Meeroo with another one by setting them to a fellowship. I think that is really good for SL, just like the fact that there have already been announcements on the SL forum from at least one Meeroos owner offering a job to someone willing to pet their Meeroos. They were released two days ago, so that promises to be a growing job market. Which is good news not only for people needing a job but also to help keep new users in SL. And in the next step for content creators and sellers. There may be other job opportunities developing around Meeroos too.

I like the professionalism from the creators. The Meeroos have been through a long beta and at least as far as I can tell they seem to have listened closely to feedback. A lot of attention seems to have been payed to how they affect sim performance not to cause unnecessary lag. The FPS on the sims I've been to have not seemed to be affected much. The support infrastructure seems to be in place before the launch. There are lots of reports, pictures and videos from those taking part in the beta so a nice open process.

I like that they are a new special species that only exists here in SL.

Prices

To buy one Meeroo with a stump to live in and food for a week costs L$999. Watch the video about how to safely open the chest or you can lose the Meeroo!

Food for one berry eating Meeroo for 30 days cost L$225. For six L$1200 (I assume that feeds one Meeroo 180 days).

It costs L$1500 to convert your Meeroo to a pet not needing to be fed.

If they mate you don't have to "open" the nest at once. So you don't run the risk of suddenly drowning in Meeroos.

Tippa and Ghostie, our very own Meeroos

My resolve didn't even last long enough to get this published on the page. I thought of rewriting it, but I may as well let it serve as a warning to others. If you don't want Meeroos - don't look at them.

There was a ball at the Castle last night

A beautiful, wonderful ball at Vadstena Castle in Second Life™. We were invited by the proud owners of the castle, Ewa Aska and Gertjan Koenkamp. It is based on the one that housed King Gustav Wasa of Sweden in the 16th century. I think its history starts before that tho. The theme for the ball was a little later than that, 18th century. We were all dressed up and so awesum we all won the contest for best dress :o)

Before the ball started we were royally entertained by the show Dance In Light, a stunning glittering show with great music staring Junivers Stockholm with choreography by Medora Chevalier.

Then we were whisked off into the stylish ballroom where we pranced about elegantly in a minuet. I've put together a video from clips I filmed during the evening. I filmed less than I had wanted, didn't want to miss all that spiritual and witty conversation.

Much as I love my jeans and tanktops, isn't that just wonderful?

Short first visit to the Home and Garden Expo

The Home and Garden Expo is open. I strongly recommend a visit. It's a bit laggy but not as bad as I expected really, nowhere near as bad as the Hair fair for instance. Me and Major have just been for a short visit today but already come across some stunning content. We started in Home Expo 2 since it wasn't so crowded.

This is the dining room in an amazing 17th century manor/castle from Kismet

The manor or castle from Kismet is well textured, well built well everything. Not exactly cheap at L$ 11000 but it's obvious that a lot of time and work went into creating it.

I am something of a house collector. I couldn't resist this pretty cottage. The money goes to Relay For Life. A great excuse for shopping.

Here is the SLURL for Home Expo 1. If you want to check where it's least crowded for the moment it's better to search for Home Expo on the world map and pick a region to TP to.

Welcome to Second Life™

Sounds nice and inviting? Then you're not a Second Life user.

I hear it or read it close to every day. In group chats, in forums, in blog comments, from friends. And I say it myself.

It's the response to any problem you have in SL. You buy something on the market and it's not delivered? You buy something in a shop and come home with an empty box and the store refuses to help? Welcome to Second Life. Learn to live with it. Or file a complaint, an Abuse Report, not that LL gets into user to user conflicts but it may help to vent. Besides even if they did it would take them months to get to it.

You register a creditcard with LL, make sure it's valid and has the right amount of money. And you have used it for months or even years to pay LL successfully. You get an email that says you don't have a valid payment method. You have 30 days to pay or you will lose your land holdings and the content of your inventory. If you don't catch this in time your account is blocked. You can't log in, you can't update your payment method.

Every little bit of problem is totally on LL's side. But you fix it. Learn to live with the fact that the customer is always wrong and has no rights. If you were to threaten to give up on SL - who cares?

I've been in SL for almost four years now. When I hear stories like this it's mostly from oldtimers that laugh about it. "Welcome to SL ..."

My guess is that if you are not an oldtimer, if you just became a premium member and went shopping or bought land and this happened to you and when you turn to the SL forum or some group for help you get the same old reply (probably a slap in the face to you who haven't learned yet that the customer always is wrong), you'd just shrug and decide to get out of here.

The worst isn't that LL screw things up and treat us like a bunch of gatecrashers whether we pay or not, it's that we look at ourselves the same way. Take a look at the forum and read the responses to people that complain about something that happened to them. And it's not even from unkind or unfriendly people. The "Welcome to SL ...", "Learn to live with it", is more like comforting phrases.

I wouldn't have written this if I hadn't seen a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. A hope that the attitude is changing at the lab. The new CEO Rod Humble has stepped in and saved the Elf Clan sims that were on the way to close down over billing issues. A sign that users matters even up there at the top. I'm sure there are employees at LL who would welcome that kind of change too.

I love my SL. It's a world like no other, where anyone can find an outlet for their creativity. It's full of fun and interesting people that build amazing places and make awesum items. I want new users to come here to help keep the SL society, and economy, alive and prospering.

There are some good signs, like the mentors being brought back to help newcomers. And I'm not sure when this happened but lately I have a much better performance in SL, on the same computer, same ISP connection and same viewer. I can cross between regions without much lag at all, and I sometimes forget I have my graphics settings on Ultra cause it's so smooth. Things are improving.

Mesh is on the way. And the fact that even if it won't happen this month we will be presented with a timetable for it. That's a huge information improvement. Kinda respectful actually. (not a sure thing, see my comment)

Since I am (and plan to stay) totally addicted to SL I have to believe that Welcome to Second Life will get back that tone of promise it once had. That feeling of "Your world. Your imagination".

Free horse rides on Fort Serenity Ranch

We have two gorgeous horses on Fort Serenity Ranch that anyone can ride. And a beautiful landscape to ride in. You can ride them anywhere on our sims. They are clever enough to TP home when they are abandoned.

It's just the two on the picture that guests can ride. They are waiting inside the barn so you should have no problem finding them.

This is the SLURL for the barn.