What is a Good Cat?

[Prokofy Neva]

I hate to rain on your parade, but I have to say, I am unable to pay attention to all the issues of traits, and what is good, and all the rest. I'm like a lot of newbies to the KittyCats scene I suppose (although I have known Callie since she sold me wonderful pink love cabins for my rentals years ago!). We cluelessly barge in, we don't know the worth of our kitties, we send kitties to the Menagerie who probably have some super-duper never-before just-surfaced trait -- heedlessly, and it is lost to history, and so on. We're like the rube who says "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like."

I don't follow all the issues of traits and values, so I just buy or keep kitties that I like the look of, or whose name is something I like, or other subjective and personal reasons. I then have tended to keep "the rares" but then not even all of those, and some I didn't even realize *were* rare. When I wish to sell them, I look at it like gatchas -- I see what that particular type of item named X with Y traits is selling for on the MP, and I adjust my price, either the lowest, or mid-level to sell after perhaps several cheaper ones sell. I really have no idea. I put "$100" if I can't figure it out, and probably lost some chances to make thousands.

I realize that someone like the late MsMagick was a pro who bred wonderful cats with all kinds of features and traits and compounded versions of them -- it's an art form. But either you have a game or hobby, so to speak, that only licensed people can engage in -- let's say like ham radio enthusiasts who need licenses and training, or hunters, who need licenses and training -- or you have it open to the public and what happens, happens.

If you just kept it a small game with highly trained and skilled professionals, that would be nice (breeders would be licensed; end users could only buy but not sell) but you might not get many people to play and breed -- and breeding needs to be refreshed and bring out traits.

There's also the RL factor that unless Callie and her company can make a profit on the cats, she has no incentive to keep trying to design and develop new ones with interesting features and maintain the whole data base and customer service structure which isn't easy. So she can't really afford the luxury of having "licensed/trained/perfected" breeders and end users not allowed to sell what they breed. She'd also face the problem of a possible black market in cats that could anger those trying to breed purely, and so on.

So it is what it is, and I think the only solution is for those who know their business and their own worth to arrange their own auctions and groups -- which is what they do anyway -- and not worry so much about the $100 cats on the MP. Because -- as you may have noticed -- most of them don't sell anyway.