I'd like to extend our gratitude for those of you that have been so patient with us while we take care of our ongoing issues. I know for some the announcement that we were closing this forum was disappointing. It was not an easy call to make, but we realized that we could, in fact, do this better. We want to streamline our communication, rather than have anyone feel drowned out by a cacophony of loudness. It was difficult to communicate here, and no matter how high we built our soapbox to respond from, some build a bigger and our responses were lost in the fray. This resulted in the misconception that we aren't speaking, responding or answering. Sadly, we just weren't being heard. Today, we've seen that point amplified many times wherein we would respond to an inquiry on a thread, and the same poster would dismiss it and post three more times across the boards to complain that we don't respond. We followed them around answering. The disregarded each on in favor of rallying a protest against us for "not listening."

There is so much fiction on these forums that it's as complex as our own lore. For us, providing accurate information is critical, but along with so much else, the information we would provide in our reactions were passed over in favor of maligning threads. This is why we could no longer support the general forum in it's current state. The only service it was providing was to those seeking a show. That wasn't fair to people genuinely looking for a response, or to the community who enjoyed sharing opinions, positive and critical, respectfully and intelligently.

Before we close these forums we need to clear up a few more things as there is so much innuendo and misinformation being spread about.

SAID: Malevay Studios doesn't care about their customers.
FACT: If we didn't, I wouldn't be here trying hard to optimize our communication. If we didn't care, I wouldn't be bothered by the negative things slung in our direction, and I wouldn't feel obligated to respond. We care, tremendously. The community is the heart of Meeroos. They have contributed infinitely to their progress. We've never left the dialog.

SAID: Malevay Studios takes to long to communicate.
FACT: this may very well be a valid perception had by some in recent weeks. Our attention has been hard focused on resolving all of the security issues and attacks, and we have spent countless hours dealing with it. It has been such an unfortunate obstacle that it has slowed our development progress and it has slowed our support responses and our communication time here on the forum. If you look back before this, we were very active both on the forums and in the blog. The unexpectedness of the chain of attacks spanning weeks has left us with the challenge of finding our footing again, and it was most definitely a backslide as well as a sad learning experience.

SAID: Malevay Studios provided a resident with free items for sharing information regarding exploiters.
FACT: We stated our gratitude. We do not provide gifts or assets for informing us of exploits, we never have. We DO provide a free gift to a community member we showcase in our spotlight. Fos Dagger received a Primbie Bird. We gave 10,000 Lindens to out 10,000th customer. That's it. We have always been transparent.

SAID: Catherine is snarky and rude!
FACT: I hate to think that! Could I be read that way, as so much intonation can be lost in text, perhaps. More specifically, I believe this specific rumor came from me be TOO kind, to the point of being perceived as disingenuous or snarky when I said to a naysayer with kindness. I believe I said said something "thank you for you support and uplifting attitude!" I overcompensated my personal emotions by appearing to force kindness. I'm human.

SAID: Malevay said the wouldn't support the secondary market yet their store is on a region with one.
FACT: I said we wouldn't have satellite stores on Secondary markets. Neither region where we had our main stores on had marketplaces on them when we moved in. We did not know there would be. We did not own these regions, we rented there. We do not own these marketplaces. We do not receive any funds for them being in our proximity. We understand that some view our store as a conflict of interests, and I believe that's a fair assessment when someone doesn't know how these situations transpire, quite unintentional. Our location, no matter where we are, should not ever be construed as a direct affront to our customers. Our business is in providing a service unrelated to land or market shops, and we shouldn't have anyone holding our feet to the fire and demanding explanation regarding something as inconsequential as our location. No harm, to anyone, has been done, no foul committed.

SAID: Malevay Studios has been attacked because they don't know how to set region settings.
FACT: Our region settings were very secure. An exploit was used within the platform beyond our control, to build objects, place false vendors, and crash the region making it inaccessible for, sometimes, days. As a result we lost customers, lost business, and lost assets. This was not because of an inadequacy in our permissions. The offending parties were using materials far beyond traditional cyber thug arsenal. They were using specialized viewers. They were using back door access to Second Life in order to do this. This was an organized target, not a simple instance of griefing. The goal was, quite literally, to force us to hand over great sums of money in order for them to stop, or be bullied out of business permanently. We were not their first victim, by their own admission. They were using us to make a statement to future victims as a show of their power over the platform and ability to affect or intercept virtual business to influence others they are threatening to pay them or suffer the consequences. combating this has been time consuming and stressful.

SAID: No one is allowed to share their opinions or they risk being banned!
FACT: completely and utterly inaccurate. This is propaganda being spread by our detractors who want to incur damage. Period. Reality is, if we banned everyone with a critical opinion, how would that serve us? The vast majority of our most vocal critics are our customers, and if they are unhappy, there is always a legitimate reason. No one has ever been banned for being critical. In fact, I can say with complete honesty that aside from us banning a handful of exploiters, we've only ever banned one other person who was not a customer of ours - and we made the choice with very good reason, and I will not discuss that out of respect to the other party. No one should feel as if they have to walk on eggshells, or silence their voice. The world needs critics. We need our critics. We can pass on the cynics, those dealing in unwarranted suspicion who are disinterested in our responses. We have some of those too. Even they have not been banned.

SAID: Everyone *I know* is leaving Meeroos and I'm quitting too!
FACT: Meeroos are incredibly stable and they continue to grow. We're always sad to lose anyone, under any circumstances. Most of our players are quite happy - some are deservedly a little frustrated over our ticket response time! But in our ration of customer loss vs. customer gain, more people are arriving than departing. In recent weeks, overall moral has definitely been impacted but has not been lost altogether. Always be wary of anyone who wants you to believe everyone is quitting... they are trying to influence you in a negative fashion, normally out of spite, or anger with the company, or feeling that they've not gotten their million dollar Meeroo while someone they know has achieved better results. When a customer decides to leave, they usually do so without much fanfare. Sometimes it's because they simply don't enjoy the game. Sometimes life get's in the way. Sometimes, truthfully, it is because they are unhappy with something we've done. These are good people and should not be persecuted. Everyone should find something they love to do with their virtual time. As long as they are chasing their own happiness, that's what matters at the end of the day, for all of us. It doesn't have to be with Meeroos. Some enjoy other virtual games, all which offer unique and fantastic experiences. No matter what a person chooses, all that should ever be expected is that they enjoy themselves doing it. However, when someone rational decided for any reason they do not want to participate, they rarely call a press conference to announce it unless it's to create malcontent.

SAID: Meeroos is understaffed and should know better.
FACT: We were doing really well before the DOS attack which resulted in the database outage and baby-ready nests. This caused an unfathomable spike in support tickets (Well over 3,000!) this up from our more typical 30-50 daily support requests. It wasn't a matter of being understaffed, it was the compounding circumstances that caused the workload to greatly outnumber our dedicated workers. We're still climbing out from under the rubble. Please know we are trying and we are all working every day.

SAID: The Meeroos market has crashed, it's game over!
FACT: According to our lawyer I am not allowed, ever, to infer or suggest that a Meeroo is worth money. We cannot maintain any fiscal responsibility over any meeroo outside our jurisdiction (i.e. not purchased from our main store.) I can tell you that people who participate in the secondary market are, overall, quite satisfied. For some, they've adopted that as an independent game unto itself, like stocks, I suppose. The truth is, if there was nothing else left to discover, or if all variations of traits had been exhausted, or if all species were found and saturating the market, the observer in me would agree. But I don't believe this is the case at all. No one has found my favorite meeroo yet (Or my favorite trait!)

I appreciate the opportunity to clarify some of these points. I started my own thread independent of the ones asking these questions or making these statements for fear it would go unread and consequentially buried.