What a weekend. Not only did my Aunt arrive in-world, and I had to ban somebody who was misusing my own land, but the timing was incredibly off in a more drastic way. Distracted by the need to get a home together for the imminent arrival, I left the chickens to their own devices. And they ran out of food. And upgraded. Or most of them did.
I have a chicken coop containing 9 Sion chickens – five were cockerels, the rest chickens. The experiment had been going well for several weeks, with births, the odd genetic death, and the addition of an orange cock chick, an almost black one, and because I fell in love with the black ‘killer’ chickens (which are all male and can’t mate, but must be kept away from other chickens as they can kill them) I also purchased and hatched a black mutant egg.
I was into the second generation of eggs, and merrily learning how to notify myself when a new egg arrived, and whiz by to pick it up into inventory before the blighter hatched. Everything was going very well, for a small chicken experiment. I had changed coops twice, to get to a larger divisible one, and had a source of retail suppliers to get new eggs and food from.
Then the weekend struck. And I suddenly realised, at 11pm Saturday night, that my chickens had no food left. And hadn’t I read on some notice somewhere that there was an imminent upgrade?
Upgrades, for Sion Chickens, arrive in the food. And here I was, without food. So, I thought, I’d better go shopping.
I went shopping – not only in-world, but onto XLStreet, where the food was still listed, but it was unavailable to purchase. Whereas my newly arrived Aunty was off shopping for clothes, I was racing around retailer and chicken shop after chicken shop trying to find any food, even one box, for my poor starving chickens.
Finally at Spellbound I found some, bought it up quickly, TP’ed home and planted it out. By then it was 1am the next morning, and I was well overdue some sleep in real life.
On returning the next day, to my amazement my chickens – or one of them anyway, was talking to me when I got close to the coup; telling me she was hungry and to buy some lovely food at the Sion SIM. Huh?
Eventually I went there, to finally realise that like everybody else TPing into a more normally quiet destination, we were being forced into upgrading via the food with no choice in the matter. I went back to read the notecard in the food folder provided by my Spellbound purchase, to work out that I had already put down one bowl of Version 11 food, and one of my chickens, at least, had upgraded.
The upgrade, although mostly positive, has had some ramifications on both my finances and one of my chickens. I’ve had to not only now go out and buy some new accessories (a egg-box to hold eggs in, now – they used to just go into inventory, but now we are forced to box them up firstly), and a device which looks like a haemorrhoid ring, but sounds like an electric plug is short-circuiting. Said device acts as a protection against newly laid eggs hatching before you can get to them now. So that is a bonus.
The version 11 originals (version 10s which have upgraded via the food) have a slightly different look to them now – they have prettier wings, and they have personalities in greeting me when I go visit them.
But I have a problem with my black chicken, the one I had segregated off to protect others, but which I consider a pet. Because my black cockerel, called ‘Killer’ hasn’t upgraded at all. There came a message to tell me the upgrade failed on that one, due to communication problems. Whether that’s intended or not, I’m not sure. I’ve joined one in-world group on Sion Chickens but nobody seems to be mentioning it.
Although Killer can eat his next version food, I’m left with a problem. With the upgrade, the transport boxes previously used to take a chicken into inventory without killing them (simply taking them killed them due to sharp objects in inventory) can no longer be used. There are new ones out, but these are a one-time use, and only work for V11 chickens.
What this means for Killer is that without having an old version of the transport box available, I can’t move him across parcels or SIMs without killing him. So he’s basically stuck on my home land, until such time as I move land, or he dies, whichever comes first.
I spent all of Sunday trying to find an old version of the transport boxes, but Sion Chickens Corp has basically wiped out everything for the old versions. Taking pity on Killer, who seems stuck as an old version, I then spent another couple of hours trying to locate a special cage for him. I hoped that segregating him away from the mass coup would allow (somehow, yeah – I know, stupid hope) Killer his own new V11 food bowl, and therefore see him upgrade.
It didn’t, of course. And Killer now has his own special cage (found at Spellbound), in prime position at my house front steps. I get to admire him every time I teleport home, so I guess his world isn’t that bad.
Version 11 of Sion saw some other enhancements. There are now four races of chickens – Originals (the upgraded V10s) and V11 Waves – these can have multi-coloured wings and tails, the ultra-rare Ancients (who apparently will glow) and Scarces (blacks, but they can mate now, and have coloured tails).
So it sounds like my Black should have become a Scarce, however this was not ever going to be possible because scarces can only be born from mated partners, just as their predecessors could. So, for all the lost blacks out there, don’t fear – I still love you (in fact, I have a necklace featuring your evil visage from Happy Chicks Farm).
Sion Chicken V11 Upgrades Notecard
The following changes and features are listed for those who have Sion chickens. Full information can be found in Shammy’s notecards which have been released in the new version food boxes over the past weekend, and are now available in the Sion Registered Vendors available in-world at registered Sion Chicken retailers.
- Updates to chickens (live chickens) will update via the food.
- Eggs will update from V10 once hatched.
- All V10 accessories (boxes and healing kits) will no longer work (or are available, it seems)
- All V11 eggs and chickens are unique one of a kinds (not copyable)
- Eggs now die in inventory, same as live chickens. Chickens and Eggs now both have an accessory box to put each into to take into inventory. The chicken box is one-use only, and works for only 4 days if the chicken is fed before being put into the box.
- Eggs on the ground can now be broken, by people stepping on them, or chickens rolling them around.
- V11 sionChicken’s have a personality – they are (normally) pleased to see their owner, and play with their toys much more.
- V11 Blacks (called Scarces) can mate.
- V11 sionChickens seek ‘sionChicken coop’ to sleep in. You can set your coop to this name (if modifiable) and this means free-range chickens will gather back into the coop when sleeping.
- There is less deaths caused by food updates, or genetic disorders.
- Lag has greatly been reduced, performance improved (I can vouch for this).
- New accessories have been released – these are all available in the approved registered vendors for Sion Chickens inworld.
- sionChicken Proteggtor – the egg boxes needed to sell or take an egg into inventory
- sionChicken radi-O-static – this is the device which prevents eggs from hatching until you get there. Works in a 10m radius. But remember, eggs can be broken, so don’t take too long checking out the coops.
- new food V11 (and now V11.1) released – normal four bowl packs, or Breeder packs (bulk square bowls)
- V11 Journal Guide and Hud – for colour-naming etc
- sionChicken Vendors for resellers – this is where you must buy everything from.
- New Wave eggs and starter sets
- Four races of chickens now -
- Original Breed – upgraded old V10 chickens (they get the new wings and personalities on upgrade)
- New Waves – contrasting coloured tails and wings.
- Scarce – Black chickens (both male and female now) with coloured tails. You can have a Scarce New Wave also – a black with differently coloured tail and wings.
- Ancients – ultra rare (once every 300 eggs) – come in any colour, but glow. Ancients can arrive from originals or new waves, but must mate with the same race. Mating an ancient with another ancient will intensify the glow, while mating with a non-ancient will slowly eradicate the glow by each generation.
Links from this Post:
- Main Sion Labs store – Sion Labs at Boardman
- Chicken Food and Killer’s new private coop (round) – Spellbound
- Evil Chicken Necklace, Burlap Chicken Feed Bag, free Chicken Toys (balls) and ‘Attack Chicken’ Sign – Happy Chicks Farm
- Cardboard sion Chicken cutouts – by Rory Larnia at Eggapalooza
Opinion on the sionChicken Upgrade
As a reasonably new small-time breeder of sion Chickens, I was taken aback by the number of changes which have happened so quickly – in the space of a couple of days only. As Sion Corp and Sion Labs have now taken on authority over all of the sion chicken business, they have taken away many of the older accessories, out of new features, or to force the upgrade.
There were many Sion Resellers out there, selling things like auto-return coops for the safe inventorising of eggs, which are no longer required by chicken owners. In this respect, I have some sympathy for many resellers and chicken farms, as part of their business has been taken away, and put into the official sion Vendors they must now sell food and accessories through. However, the business reasonings behind this, to produce scarce and ultra-rare races which will be sought after, and more marketable, is a valid one.
From my own perspective, I am left with an old Version 10 black killer chicken with no ability to move him across land, which is something I was intending doing. If I’d had the communication towards those old chicken boxes being taken immediately off the market, I would have purchased one for this purpose earlier.
Going by the number of people teleporting into that one Sion HQ Sim on the two occasions I went there over the weekend, I’m not the only one caught short in the way this has all happened. I came across one man who was begging for money to buy only one set of food for his chickens, and that was the only vendor he had found so quickly which was selling it. As with my findings, many of the resellers haven’t yet started offering via the new sion Vendor, and the food still isn’t available on XLStreet.
However, the upgrade has re-jigged the market, and even the smaller breeders like I am have been treated with the same brush. We either can continue on with our Originals and try to hatch an Ancient or Scarce egg, or go out and purchase some of the New Wave eggs to start afresh. This new market can be witnessed easily. Only three days after the initial upgrades, and a Scarce egg is being auctioned as we speak. Currently the bid is at L$2000.
The upgrade also has quite a few bonuses for chicken farmers everywhere – the lag problems, and death problems seem much improved, and chicken farming has become more interesting in many aspects. Despite my one lost chicken who is doomed to being an original original V10, the upgrade has large benefits to those interested in Sion Chicken farming. I could have done with some more information about it beforehand, however.
Purple Day
To celebrate the Relay for Life’s newest idea – to paint Second Life Purple to remember those who have suffered through cancer, I am wearing purple today. The photos in this post show my purple outfit, and a close-up of an original black ‘killer’ chick necklace. Although I own a lot of purple by choice (I like bright colours) I went out to purchase a new outfit for the day, and happened upon the large fashion SIM of Aohura.
You will find quite a few fashion retailers sending out freebies or holding sales of their purple goods to help out for the day also.
Style Card for Purple Day :
Undertop and pants: Top and Glitch pants from BT_Bright Graduation Dress in Red / Lilac at Aoharu
Coat: BT_Simple Trench Coat in purple at Aoharu
Shoes: Boho Chic Mules – Violet Leather by Pretties by JB
Sunglasses: Crowe glasses 1.17 by primOptic
Necklace: Evil Rooster Necklace available at Happy Chicks Farm.
Location: Photos shot on my own land, around the Chicken Coops
Body Style Card (hair, skins etc) – please refer to Pacific’s Bodystyle 1. Alterations – skin is the same, but this time makeup is Lilac.
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