jewels: frequency?

[Kayleigh McMillan]

Personally I don't care for them much.
The traits are interesting to me and they float the market soon enough.
So those are for all of us as it should be

[Tad Carlucci]

Personally, I have some small trepidation concerning the Jewels subsystem. Not for anything about how it works; just that it skirts too close to the ToS rules concerning gaming systems.

The question lies in whether the player-run market for Jewels creates enough value that the Jewel becomes 'something of value' .. an intentionally nebulous term .. which opens the door for someone at Linden Labs declare it against the rules, or, worse yet, someone with the Gaming Commission over here, to get a bug up his @$$ one day and declare our accessing it against the law.

[Ivy Norsk]

I don't get it. What would be the difference between a jewel market and a kittycat market, and having the kitty boxes declared something of value? What would trigger such a thing? And after all, the jewel market is very small compared to the secondary kitty market as a whole. And as for gaming systems, well nobody is gambling for jewels... they are pretty clearly breeding for kittyboxes. That wouldn't be hard to demonstrate.

[Tad Carlucci]

The difference is control. The results obtained from producing KittyCat offspring are under player control. Yes, randomness is involved. But the effects of randomness from the breeding process can be completely eliminated. This makes breeding largely a game of skill where randomness is only necessary to set up the initial conditions. Jewels, on the other hand, and completely random and there is nothing one can do to effect the results; there is no skill involved.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

Can't jewels be gained via the fishing tournaments?
If one insists they can have fairly easy access to them.
And breeding the KittyCatS of the month can bring a jewel too I believe.

Luckily they made them available via other ways too.

[Oselkhandro Resident]

OK, I understand now, thanks. No sense trying to get jewels! It certainly seems correct that jewels exist to drive huge breeding programs, which therefore drive cat food sales. The KittyCatS program is a really lovely example of "Gamification", a cutting edge marketing tactic that uses behavioral modification to create purchasing behavior. Currently, I have used Blizzard's World of Warcraft ® to teach my university marketing students about behavioral modification for sales promotion. I am now thinking about asking the students to explore KittyCatS (if the SL learning curve were not so steep; WoW is easier to use). Kudos to the KittyCatS developers for a really successful marketing idea!

[Tad Carlucci]

KittyCatS is (are?) good on so many levels. I think they'd make an excellent case study. If you want the other side of the coin, I might have some private suggestions.

[Oselkhandro Resident]

Oh thank you Tad!!! I really admire the ingenuity of the "game" for KittyCatS! I would love to share your thoughts sometime! I am teaching Gamification this semester, and I am giving the course again in the early summer semester.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

I want private suggestions too! :-)
Especially about coins and how to keep them where they belong: in the pocket.

[Ivy Norsk]

Tad Wrote:The difference is control. The results obtained from producing KittyCat offspring are under player control. Yes, randomness is involved. But the effects of randomness from the breeding process can be completely eliminated. This makes breeding largely a game of skill where randomness is only necessary to set up the initial conditions. Jewels, on the other hand, and completely random and there is nothing one can do to effect the results; there is no skill involved.

I think you're worrying too much. People are buying and breeding kittyboxes. The jewels are incidental. The situation in KittyCats more closely parallels contests attached to purchases. For instance, M&Ms candy can sell M&Ms packs and announce that certain packages will be specially marked and if you get a special pack you get a prize. Under U.S. law, when they run such a contest they have to post rules and odds of winning. But in this case, the presence of very rare random jewels is ongoing and determined by an algorithm. I could see them being forced to disclose the frequency according to the algorithm, but even that is so very unlikely, given that KittyCatS is really a very small company in the greater scheme of things.

Kayleigh Wrote:And breeding the KittyCatS of the month can bring a jewel too I believe.

I don't think anybody has ever won the Kitty of the Month contest. It simply takes longer than a month to breed a cat to spec. I haven't been through all of the lists of the monthly contests, but in none that I saw was there a winner. Plenty of people come close at 8 traits every month, but not 9. I came close in December, along with 2 others, but no cigar. Mind you, this doesn't upset me. I see it more as a way to bring attention to certain furs and other traits that may be neglected. I can remember when nobody was breeding Aby Creme and the contest jumpstarted work on that fur.