The Meeroo Mess

In May, we took a look at the new hit breedable pet on the Second Life Grid: The Meeroos. Being more interactive, having more personality, and slower reproducing than previous breedables, it looked like the company behind them had a sure hit. Nothing it seemed could go wrong.

Unfortunately, trouble did come. The Meeroos blog stated that “since the beginning of July,” someone “had been committing a series of exploits with the Meeroos.” Then a counterfeit store was built in the Twas sim, which began selling fake food. It was traced to two day-old accounts whose names were variants of “Meeroos Resident, the asset manager of the Meeroos’ company staff. Besides depriving the company of Lindens, the phony food contained unknown scripts with unpredictable effects that could be fatal to the virtual critters.

Linden Labs soon stepped in to ban the griefers. Unfortunately, they blocked the wrong account. They blocked Meeroos Resident from the Grid, as well as shutting down the Twas Sim. The result was the company unable to sell food, and pet Meeroos going hungry. New world Notes described Meeroo owners as tweeting Linden Lab’s Rodvik Linden, pleading him to let them feed their pets.

Fortunately, unlike some other breedables, Meeroos do not starve to death. Instead they’re described as running away in search of food, able to be recalled by a “whistle of return.” So there apparently was no danger of pets being lost through lack of food. And eventually, the Meeroos Resident account was released, as was the Twas sim.


It's been quite a weekend here, for all of us at Malevay Studios and our wonderful community around Meeroos. We know this has been a challenging time that has been both frustrating and often discouraging, but I am pleased that we have weathered this storm and have arrived on the other side. Linden Lab and Malevay Studios have been working together to remove fraudulent content from the grid in order to restore confidence to Meeroo Parents. As always, you are our number one priority, and with Linden Lab we have taken the required steps to reduce the threats that have been plaguing us.


Second Life Newser contacted the Meeroo owners Grey interviewed, but they had since given up on raising pets. Dropping by the store in the Roo sim, residents were dropping by to get food and other goods. In once corner was a big pile of grain, as if to advertise there was now plenty of food. One lady told me she was getting her first Meeroo. Others, however, told me of troubles, “... all of mine and the stumps vanished and still are missing, I had 24. So now I have to buy a new stump and food. Gone, vanished. I’m so angry because I just bought a snowpaw. Now I have nothing and lost my $400 and Meeroo people have not found them yet! Now I’ve just ordered berries and again not delivered. This is the 4th time this week I did not get delivery as well.” He was filing reports to the Meeroo website at support. Apparently, this resident was still having some problems.

A few days after the Meeroo troubles, another virtual pet company, Petables, announced plans to eventually close it’s operation in the Second Life Grid. While their turtles will still be running for now, “At a future date when the turtles are no longer paying for their server costs and the tier for the store in Shark, we will give a week or two warning, and then shut them down completely.”

Petables went on to explain the reason for this was an exploit left unresolved, “There is an issue on Linden Lab's end that was reported in 2006 that Linden Lab has never addressed. This issue allows people to steal whatever they want from vendors, and there is nothing that we can do to stop it. ... We have done everything short of go to the Linden Lab office building and refuse to leave until they at least talk about this problem, and have been ignored or dismissed every single time. For us to see something that we have poured thousands of hours into treated like that by the platform provider is probably the most de-motivating thing that I have ever experienced.” They explained one person in particular had stolen “thousands of US dollars worth of product from us,” and could no longer deal with Linden Lab’s refusal to solve the problem.

Second Life’s most popular pet remains on the grid, but another has given up due to the same kind of trouble that apparently the danger of will be around indefinitely.

Sources: New World Notes, Meeroos Blog, Petable's Blog,

Bixyl Shuftan

Amaretto Horses

I was out looking for a park the other day when I found myself in the middle of a herd of horses. They were near the path leading to Artis Natur, located at Reveleations (121/156/29). I must have arrived at dinner time because the horses were all whinnying and restless. When I spotted their owner, Freyja Nemeth, I decided to postpone my hike in order to talk to her.

Freyja Nemeth and her partner, Ran Garrigus, have been raising Amaretto horses for about 3 weeks. The Amaretto horses have only been available for about a month, so Nemeth and Garrigus have gotten in on the ground floor of this newest addition to breedable SL animals. Between them they own about 22 horses.

Prior to raising horses, Nemeth raised Ozimal bunnies. The horses, she explained, are more complex, and serious breeders keep track of bloodlines and traits in order to try to breed more exotic horses. “Each horse has two genes for each trait,” she said, “so once you start breeding them, that's when you can get out rare coats that sell for lots of money. For example, a starter horse might be a golden Palomino. Some hidden traits are coats like Red Arabians or Silver/Black Mustangs. And they can also get special eyes like Diamond or Opal or upright or long manes instead of normal manes.”

The Amaretto horses vary widely in price. If purchased as a pack of 1 male and 3 females, the cost is about $3000L. At the auction houses or from private sellers, the cost can range from as low as $200L to as high $80,000L. Rare stallions have been known to cause bidding wars at the auctions, she said.

Her dapple grey, “Prosperina”, was a special limited edition horse and very pretty. Nemeth also has a foal who was born with aquamarine eyes, another special trait. The foal was just hours old when I saw her, but she’ll be mature in 7 days and be able to breed in about 4 months.

The horses can also be ridden, and Nemeth assured me they were gentle. She hopped up on “Branwen” to show me how the horses move. Because they are worn, they can be ridden in any location, which is a plus. Like RL horses, however, these SL horses must be fed and cared for on a regular basis. If they aren’t cared for and fed, they can get sick, which means vet bills, medicine, etc. Horse food costs about $200L/month. Saddles, bridles, and other accessories are also available.

The horses were fascinating, so I decided to visit a couple of auction houses. The first, Herdy's Auction Barn, located at Nantes (56, 117, 23), was packed with residents and horses. I just missed the live auction, but there were silent auctions going on continually. Owners place their horses in the stalls that line the barn, set a minimum bid, and wait for auction fever to hit. "Beck", a silver Arabian female had almost 3 hours remaining on her auction. A resident named A. Lupindo (a distant cousin maybe?) had bid $10,000L, but he or she had been outbid. When I left, the high bid was $12,500L.

At Red Barn Horses, located at Lighthouse Oasis (196, 121, 301), horses filled a couple of barns and row and after row of outside corrals. Auctions are held every morning there. Signs were posted to explain the rules and how the auctions work, which was helpful.

For more information about Amaretto horses, check out http://amarettobreedables.com But if horses and bunnies aren’t your thing, just wait. The rumor around SL is that kittens are one the way.

Grey Lupindo