VKitty - Recent news

How fast are you connected to VKitty?

Ben L — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:47:44 +0000

Just now, I added a speed test for VKitty users at http://vkitty.net/speed.

Your upload and download speeds and your browser type will be recorded anonymously so we can help make VKitty a smoother experience for everyone.

In addition, if you find any actions or pages on VKitty that do not load as fast as they should, post in this topic or send me a private message.

VKitty Survey #1

Ben L — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:32:16 +0000

Fill out our first survey at http://l.vkitty.net/survey1 and you'll help determine future content!

Ever wanted to run your own shop?

Ben L — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:05:25 +0000

With player owned shops, anyone on VKitty can run a shop. Just go to Shops -> Marketplace in the menu and click "create one now"! You'll be able to name it, put items up for sale and change prices.

Also included in this update is Bob's Warehouse. Bob will buy any item for 3/4 of the shop price and sell them to anyone for 9/10 of the shop price. Worthless items (like an empty milk bottle) will not be resold.

If you're having trouble finding the shop you want, you can try the new item search. It allows you to type in any item name from VKitty and find the shops that have the item in stock. Shops will be listed with the least expensive first.

Humane Society loading too slowly? Try it now.

Ben L — Sat, 23 May 2009 15:56:34 +0000

A lot of updates have gone into effect and the VKitty Humane Society has been neglected. Here are a few of the most common problems that I've heard reports of that are now fixed:

It tells me I need JavaScript - Whenever a VKitty Humane Society page was loaded, the user's browser would ask for the ID numbers of each cat, and then communicate with the server to find out what the cats looked like, how old they are, and other data that a potential adopter would want to know. I've sped up this process considerably on the server side, as well as on the client side.

It stops part of the way through loading and won't move - If there is a network problem and your request is lost, the loading would appear to take forever. I've added some code to retry loading as many times as needed if a connection problem occurs. If all else fails, however, check to see if you can connect to VKitty and/or refresh the humane society page.

I don't want any fancy animations or pictures. I just want to know who's in the humane society, and I want to know fast - With the new mobile version, everything is computed by the server. For slower computers or slower internet connections, this is a very important addition. You still get the information, but in a much smaller format. There is currently no way to adopt via this method, but it is a planned addition for the future.

The humane society won't let me click on anything! I just want to adopt a cat - This error was caused entirely by people not reading the instructions carefully. Clicking on the cat's name was the trigger for adoption, not the cat itself. Now, the cat and the cat's name will both do the same thing, and I've removed the show stats link from the list view as this was also causing confusion.

New: VKitty.net!

Kat — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:54:40 +0000

VKitty.co.cc is now a thing of the past. We have moved to VKitty.net. We will still continue to redirect from VKitty.co.cc to VKitty.net until August, but update all of your bookmarks! After our .co.cc domain has expired, its gone for good. Remember: all of your stuff is still here, the only thing missing is a few cookies which you can get back by logging in. :)

We hate email spam waaay more than you do.

Ben L — Sun, 17 May 2009 16:07:21 +0000

VKitty is now participating in Project Honey Pot, a collaborative spam trapping system.

Here's how it works:

A spam bot finds a link on VKitty to a fake page, let's say http://vkitty.net/s/p/o/o/n.shtml
Although that page may look at first glance like a boring terms of service page, it's actually very special page.
Try highlighting some of the text on the page. Right away, you'll know what I mean by special.
There is a hidden email address (one just as fake as the page) If someone sends an email to it, they'll be marked as a spammer.

To help, all you need to do is link to the VKitty honey pot. Here's how the server decides which addresses are honey pots:

If the address starts with http://vkitty.net/s/ go to the next step. Otherwise, show the actual page.
If the address continues with a sequence of a letter, then a slash three times, go to the next step. Otherwise, show the actual page.
If the rest of the address is a file name consisting of letters, numbers, and underscores followed by a dot and two to five letters, numbers, and underscores, it is a honey pot. Otherwise, show the actual page.

If you want any statistics about the honey pot and how much spam it has caught, feel free to ask!

Shops!

Kat — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:23:10 +0000

After a lot of hard work, there are now three shops on VKitty: Fred's Groceries, Kathie's Clothing Store, and The Rare and Special Items Boutique.

The rare items store will give you a discount if you have received a rare item from the Daily Drawing.

In addition, cats and kittens will now get hungry, so be sure to feed them!

Active pet!

Kat — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:27:48 +0000

With all the cats you could have, it would take a while to load them, so our latest feature is Active Pet. It shows one pet, your active pet. You can switch your active pet by hitting "Switch Active Pet" underneath your active pet. Enjoy!

Daily Drawing improvements, equippable items, and more!

Ben L — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:54:49 +0000

Daily Drawing improvements

We knew something was wrong with our Daily Drawing system from the time we created it. We just couldn't figure out what it was until now. The system allowed users to get their next prize after 24 or more hours had passed. Unfortunately, this meant that every day, you would need to wait longer before getting your prize.

Now, we're giving a true one-per-day prize. Instead of waiting 24 hours before resetting your prize, we now wait until midnight UTC. This means that you can get a prize right before bed one day and right after breakfast the next!

Equippable items

Before this update, you would need to contact an administrator to get an item put on or taken off of your cat. Now, you can click two times and the server will do it for you.

On the front page, simply click on an item's name, then click where it says Equip to [Cat Name]. In a moment, the sidebar will refresh, and your cat will be wearing the item!

To make this more fun, we have added an additional three colors of bows, totaling five: red, orange, blue, green, and purple. We plan on adding more clothing items like mittens and sweaters very soon. You can currently get any of the bows from the daily drawing machine - we've even reset everyone's timer to allow them one more chance to get a bow!

However, this item update is not just about equipping! You can also fill things! Bottles with milk and litter boxes with fresh litter are just two examples.

New VKitty Cat Designs!

Kat — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:41:56 +0000

You might have noticed that the cats have changed. We're introducing our newest cat designs. After long and hard work from both Ben and I, we thought these where the best designs ever. So enjoy the new cats! Also included in the update was eye colors. Originally just a black dot, then Ben made gold eyes, now there are 3 different colors!