So today is the Fourth of July, otherwise known as Independence Day in the US. Since the 4th is on a Saturday, most businesses, etc, had Friday off, so I had a nice three-day weekend. I couldn’t find any local fireworks, though? Apparently some of the towns had theirs on Friday? NY is having theirs on the Hudson tonight, but someone told me it’s madness trying to get anywhere near there; people have been settling in since yesterday. Oh well. I’ve got channel 4 on right now.

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Oh yes I did… Reactivated my LoTRO account *shrug*

I’m still playing the ID and the SG versions of HKO. Since ID is live, I’ve been spending most of my time there. And hopefully once the SG version goes live, we’ll get some news on the US version? Hint hint?It’s fairly obvious that I like, and will continue, to play HKO. But, you know, variety and that stuff?

I’m sure the GMs don’t really care one way or another what games I play. Heck, they’re GMs, they’re probably gamers themselves, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them played any of the big-name commercial games. I know when I was a GM, I needed to play someone elses games. Kinda the need to “get away from work”. Or perhaps that’s just me projecting? If so, my apologies.

It’s odd that just after posting my musings about LoTRO that I received an email from Turbine, “come back for $9.95!”.  Well, I looked into it, but that $10 is for new players, and I wanted to reactivate my old account, so “certain restrictions apply”. Of course they’re always having “come back” specials.

Anyways, here are some screenshots after the break, if you’re interested. I also put these screenies after the break, cause I run my video at 1600×1200, so they can be a little large.

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Well, that was fast. The open beta ended just last week, and today, July 1, is the official launch of HKO for Indonesia. See hellokittyonline.co.id

One of the first things I wanted to do was get the thick glasses, so I could “complete” my scientist outfit. I can’t find the bald head, so I’ll have to make do.

The SG/MY version is still in Founders Beta, and they’ve extended that until mid-July. I’d suspect, if things are moving this fast, they’ll go live in August.

I hope the poor GMs aren’t overworked/overstressed.

Remember the Easter egg hunt contest SanrioTown ran? I was one of the winners from round 2, and my prize came today! It is a Hello Kitty 1gb USB memory stick. I actually won one of these last year, in a contest inside HKO, so now I have two of them!

Hmm, I should RAID them. Yea, I know, RAID with two drives isn’t fun (mirroring, or striping), you really need three or more for the real fun.

When I inserted it into my computer, there were two files on it! One is an HKO trailer, the other is a trailer for the animated series The Adventures of Hello Kitty and Friends.

It looks like the same person who packaged the first prize also packaged this one. The handwriting is the same. See, here is the “new” one:

And here is the “old” one:

Such neat handwriting. I’d like to meet the person who wrote this out. I have terrible handwriting, so I admire good handwriting. See, here is what my handwriting looks like. This is a sheet of scratch paper at work, so it’s “real”.

I’d like to blame technology. I mean, I don’t really need to write. Everything can be done electronically, yes? But that theory is easily shattered. Oh well.

Thanks again :)

The SG/MY version of HKO has been running, so of course I elbowed my way into their Founders’ Beta. I think it ends on July 2? I’m not entirely sure. The Indonesian version is shut down, and when the SG/MY version shuts down, I wonder what next? The SG/MY is called their Founders’ Beta, but it’s running (what appears to be) the same version as the Open Beta of Indonesian. Confusing, isn’t it? I imagine other than localization files, they (SD) are trying to keep things in sync to some degree.

Anyways, either due to the fact that I just did all the quests last week, or the fact that there are like 12 people online, I was able to “finish” all the quests. Or so it seems. I can’t seem to find any more. But I won’t go into that, cause of spoilage, right? But here is the “finished” avatar.

When the ID version shutdown, they had a farewell party, and someone was wearing the lab coat, the thick glasses (which I’m wearing here), but he had a bald head. I must say it was brilliant. He looked like a mad scientist! I did not get a screenshot, much to my dismay.

I’ve been playing the Indonesian HKO, and the open beta shuts down sometime within the next 12-24 hours. Apparently they’re shooting for the Indonesian release by July, but don’t take my word on it, cause that’s just scuttlebutt.

The Singapore version apparently just launched their Founders Beta today, but I’m not exactly happy with their launch. The communication was sketchy, and the account setup process is unclear. I made a sanriotown.com.sg account, the gloot.net (the publisher) has an odd setup where gloot.net makes the account for you. So now not only do I have azog:hellokitty.com.sg, I also have azog:hellokitty.com.my. I hope they can fix / figure that out.

Was really hoping to see the SanrioDigital GMs in-game, at least one more time. At least Abby, cause, well, you know. I’m just a dipstick in that matter. Not disrespecting the rest, I’d love to see them in-game too. But it looks like all the regions are gearing up pretty fast, I don’t think SD will be hosting another round. Same thing, just scuttlebutt on my part, so I could very well be blowing sunshine and speaking out of place.

In any event. Here are a couple of shots, and some bland thoughts on things. Also, there’s a bit of a rant / oration / monologue / manifesto at the end.

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Ok, so I suspect this has been brought up elsewhere, and I equally suspect the devs had / have their own discussions on this, but I’m a loud mouth so I want to put in my two cents.

Auto-targetting (the T key) has been disabled. Since it’s disabled on both the ID version, and in the SG/MY version, I only imagine that this was disabled in the code base, and not an option that a publisher can manipulate. But I’d really like them to reconsider it:

• Lag. Right-clicks sometimes don’t register. Lag was even an issue when the T key worked. You’d click (or key), and move up to the critter, and just sort of stand there. With right-clicks the only option, it gets to be more of an irritant.
• Critters hidden behind the landscape. Some of the trees are pretty big, and the critters walk around behind it. When you try to click on them, you’re just as likely to click on the resource instead. In the meanwhile, the critter is taking bites at you.
• I’m probably not alone here, but I tend to drive two-handed where possible, and actually don’t like to take my hands off the keyboard if I don’t need to. People at work hate me, because I know all the Windows shortcut keys, and when I try to say “here, do it this way”, they look at me like I’m some sort of freak. Well, I guess I am, but that’s neither here nor there. But still, it would be nice to have some alternate driving method. With everything pretty much mouse-driven, it can sometimes be tiring on your hands.

One of the GOGAME (the ID version) GMs said it was to make it more challenging. Someone else said it was done to prevent macro’ing, and I’m more apt to lean in that direction. I’d agree that macro’ing isn’t really fair, if it is not a fundamental part of the game (some games allow you to macro), but I think there might be other way to detect/prevent macro’ing.

Well, I really don’t wanna sound like I’m whining, although I guess that’s exactly what I sound like.  For the most part*, all the changes I’ve seen are great, and I’m sure the devs and everyone worked hard to get to this point, and there’s undoubtedly more work for them to do.

(* for the most part; I want my pimp/mafia vendors back!)

Some emo stuff here. You might want to skip it.

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See what happens when you get bored? This is the first thing that comes up in google when you type GM bacon. Check out that abstract. How abstract is that?

When I look at this new post, the first thing I see is that huge top hat! It looks like the ones that the vendors wear. Oh yea, I have to get one of those fast. If anything, that hat alone is worth the wait.

I don’t wear hats IRL, so I dunno why I’m so keen on that particular hat.

(cue the Barry White music) Oh baby

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Bacon speaks.

Some good news. Sounds like a lot of work has been redone. They’ve not said anything one way or another, but I think at this point, I’m expecting that we’ll have to restart our characters. And if they’ve revamped the quest system, one can only hope that they decided to ditch the burry ball!

It sounds like they’re in deadline mode, and any news at this point is good news. With no disrespect to Bacon, but I do wish one particular GM would break her own silence, also.

And props to those who get the reference of my post title.

Well, I really wasn’t expecting this:

Thank you to the people at SanrioTown!

Yay, some more news for the starving masses!

I  think know someone who’ll scream when she hears the LTS are in the game (or at least, so it looks like)

I dunno what’s wrong with me. I guess I’m just a sucker for stuff. They tease us with trailers of the “Adventures of Hello Kitty & Friends”, but it doesn’t appear to be available in the US. Or if so, not on any of my channels. So I decided to purchase this:

But given the lack of availability in the US, I got it shipped from . . .

(check out the wonderful stamp)

I was cheezed off, cause the seller said it was “worldwide”, which, to me, means region-free (or region-0, or whatever you want to call it), but it’s really region-3. So I couldn’t play it on my home-theater. I probably could have set the region, but I didn’t want to mess with that. So I set the region on my PC, and played it from there.

I only watched the first episode, but it’s pretty nice. Obviously geared towards teaching lessons, but it they did a good job at writing it so almost any audience could enjoy it.

And more importantly, Kitty doesn’t have a mouth! I’ve watched some other (older? I dunno) HK animation, where they’ve animated a mouth, and it just doesn’t work. Yea, maybe it looks funny hearing a character speak with no visible mouth, but guess what? It’s a cartoon! They can do whatever they want!

Maybe someone will somehow stumble on my comments about non-US availability. But that’s probably just me reaching above my station in life.