I have had around 100 cats, give or take a few at any given point, since the update. By now, that means hundreds of kittens - and not ONE jewel.
I do own a jewel - but that was because I bought it
Then yesterday, my mother had her first kitten - and lo and behold, suddenly a strange red prim is hovering right next to her cat - she was close to deleting it, thinking it was some random prim left over from her recent move....!! I must admit that for a moment there I thought "Ohhhh FFS!" - to be completely honest, hehe - but I am of course also happy for her.
However, currently the jewels are of no value at all. Unless we all get together and put our jewels in one pot, noone will get a fancy cat this side of next christmas
My wish? -It is to remove the jewels from the kitten boxes, and instead make them appear randomly upon sending a cat to menagerie! -Comming with a sort of cute message about your cat leaving behind valuables for you as it happily runs to the lovely place. -Either that, or jewels merging with KittyBucks, giving us a little, but steady value towards that fancy cat every time.
It would also remove a LOT of "less desirable" kitties from the grid, and help the 2nd market by adding a certain value to ALL cats. -Who'd sell a cat at the dumping price of 100L when you could get a jewel by sending it to menagerie...? -And if anyone did, it'd be bought so fast that few would notice that fire sale ;-)
I know KittyCats earn on food - but with "too many" cats on the grid, prices on the 2nd market drops to a level where people give up on their cats because it gets too expensive. -After all, most people are dependant on making at least part of the food cost back via the 2nd market, or breeding the lovely critters just gets too expensive - and they give up or move on to cheaper breedables, or keep just 1 or 2 as pets, which in the long run is definately not in the interest of KittyCats.
I have a feeling that even though few wants to make a fuzz about it, very few or noone are really HAPPY with the current jewel-system. I for one wouldn't mind seeing a change - in the direction I suggested here, or something else that could help towards the same goals.