It’s still a day away, but I’m going to take a long weekend vacation, so I’ll post now, and wish everyone a Happy 2009!

Psst, give us a clue for HKO Open Beta!

I tried to find an appropriate lolcat, but when I saw this, I was floored, and the sentiment does not actually apply :)

Here are some miscellaneous areas you can explore in New York. This is pretty much the end of my tour of New York. The only quests which were available were related to the “Save Christmas” arc, and as you might have noticed, some of the buildings and areas lack NPCs, so hopefully they’ll more fully populate the city in Open Beta or release.

Central Park:

The finanical district:

This is just outside of Central Park. I call it Times Square, but only because the big billboard. It’s not properly shaped to be Times Square:

The docks. By the way, the New York farm manager is located here, as well as a seed vendor:

And then we have a secret visitor:

Finally, just as a commentary on how well I think HKO captures the visual image of a place, look at this one below. There’s nothing really exciting, but notice the fire-escape and the snow on the railings, and look at the snow piled up in the curbs. I took this screenshot because this attention to detail is something which actually says a lot. I know, like the rest of HKO, it’s very “cutesy” and the components are probably just built with a toolkit, but still, it says a lot about the imagination of the artists.

This is the entrance to Lincoln Center.

If you’ve spent any time exploring New York, you might have noticed a particular character whose image is plastered all over the place. So much that you might just wonder, who really runs this town?

Sorry for the lame commentary :(

Grand Central Station, or more accurately, Grand Central Terminal, is one of the busiest, and probably oldest, transit stations in New York. As for myself, I actually never need to use this station; when I need to go in to NY, I will usually go to Hobokon and then take an underground (PATH) or a ferry, depending on where I want to go.

This is a pretty image. Probably the only time you’ll see the station ever empty. I wonder how hard it would be for them to make the clock actually work? Not shown on the screen is a railroad, just below the main foyer. You can see the barrier ropes.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art… Not much to say. I’m actually conservative in my opinions on art. I prefer art from prior to the 19th century, romanticism, rococo and stuff like that. I don’t like any of the “modernism” or “neomodernism” or the dozens of other genres. I just don’t get it. I can’t really look at a cubist painting and say “Hmm, the artist is trying to tell us…”.

Be that as it may, the Museum of Art is famous. Here is the outside.

Exploring the inside:

The Empire State Building was named after the nickname of New York state, The Empire State. It was the tallest building in New York for many years, and sadly, now holds that title again. It is also the second tallest building in the United States. It’s on the national landmark register, and has been officially recognized for its architecture and engineering. There’s a lot more that can be said about the building, but if you’re in NY, you can visit the building.

Here is the lobby of the HKO Empire State Building. I wish I could read whats on the sign behind the desk. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a shot of the exterior. I have no idea why…

Ah. Mom, apple pie and baseball. What could be more American than baseball? Actually, contrary to popular folk-lore, baseball wasn’t invented in America. We might have been one of the first nations to codify and popularize baseball, but we didn’t invent it.

Be that as it may, America and baseball are still near-synonymous, and of course, we have Yankee Stadium in New York. But, this most famous baseball stadium is actually closed, having hosted the last baseball game on September 21, 2008. The new stadium will open in April 2009, and while the old one is scheduled for demolition, it will remain an iconic image for years.

Hey batta batta batta

I got it! I got it!

One of the suburbs of New York is Queens, which, among other things, hosts the Arthur Ashe Stadium. I’m not a big tennis fan, so I’ve never been there, nor do I really pay particular attention. It is a frequent crossword clue, though!

Outside the stadium:

Ah, but not too far from the stadium is what appears to be a bowling alley! That’s more my style, although I haven’t played in years.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, millions of people emigrating to the United States were processed at the immigration centers on Ellis Island. As their ships would pull in to harbour, their first view of America was the Statue of Liberty, arguably the most famous icon of America.

Today, Ellis Island is part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. You can take a ferry ride to Ellis Island and explore the museum, and later in the day, take another ferry to the Statue. Definitely worth the trip, but make sure you go in extremely clement weather, as you’ll be outside for a significant period of time.

What could be more appropriate, upon your first visit to New York, than seeing the HKO version of the Statue of Liberty? I doubt the island is Ellis Island, but it is still nice to fantasize, isn’t it? There doesn’t appear to be a way to access the Statue tho.

There’s a new HKO blog post about loyalty points.

I hope I didn’t anger any of the GM’s with my speculation, considering they posted that fairly shortly after I posted my comments on the item mall :( Either that, or I’m just being narcissistic in thinking that the GMs would pay attention to me.

One of the biggest additions for the Christmas Reunion was the item mall. People who’ve played other free online games should be familiar with cash shops, and this is no different.

They gave us 300 Loyalty Points to spend in the item mall. There’s also another type of mall currency, called coins, but that wasn’t available yet. Coins appear to be purchased with real-world currency. I don’t know how we accrue Loyalty Points, but I personally doubt it will be tied into the SanrioTown Kitty Points. If I were to make a guess, based on the name “Loyalty Points”, they’ll probably award points based on time played, or some such duration. But that’s all speculation on my part! They might even change it to something totally different.

In any event, I purchased three items: a derby hat, a skull teeshirt, and a monocle. The hat and tee-shirt are purely cosmetic, going into an appearance slot without disabling functional items. The derby is something I’d actually call a “bowler”. The teeshirt is modelled after the Punisher Top (I think?). Both look rather nice. I do wish they would get those in-game vendor hats as player items!

As for the monocle… There is only one eye slot, which is functional. There is no corresponding cosmetic slot. So if your current eye-wear has stats, you’ll lose those bonuses.

There were a number of other items. One of my guild-mates, a female avatar, had a microphone stand, but I didn’t see that option. I saw another female avatar with the microphone stand, so perhaps it was gender specific. Females can also buy handbags, and apparently the animation for those is awesome: you WHAP them with the handbag. Anyways, no need to go thru the entire inventory, there’s lots of cool stuff now, and if things look up the way they seem to be, there will be even more cool stuff later.

It’s Christmas here, 6:30 AM. Still on my first cup of coffee tho…

(that’s not my image, just so I don’t get in trouble!)

Well, the FB Christmas Reunion is over. It was too short. They’re not giving us any hints on Open Beta, either, /whine. Here are some random screenies i took on December 18th, the first time I logged in.

I had totally forgotten that I was on the beach, and said “whoops”

As soon as I put on my clothing:

The old “gag” is now a “Medical Mask”, and gave me a sportin’ goatee! I REALLY like that! I wish the earrings were a little less ostentatious.

Now that I feel more decent, explore Sanrio Harbour just a bit:

There are Christmas decorations everywhere. It’s fun. In Sanrio Harbour is the entrance to New York, but I wanted to explore a little bit. So I headed to London, to my farm (little did I know), and in the privacy of my front yard, I took my pets out for a walk.

Fluffy, the Dino, is apparently  feeling a little cooped up and wants to do something:

But my poor cur, Hrothgar… I guess I should have arranged a kennel stay for him, because the first thing he said to me was…

I have a few more screenshots I’ll bore you all with later. But this should be good enough for now.

Wow, I had totally forgotten about this. The last day of Founders’ Beta was the Kevent, and they had a series of trivia questions. One of the questions was “what charities did the Food4Friends benefit?”. Unicef and the Asian Youth Orchestra. If you were there, you know what madness it was. Uncounted numbers of people typing in at the same time, but mai mad skillz 200+ WPM was able to beat the mob to the punch.

Thank you :)

Since I’m done with the Christmas quests, and there are a few days to go, I’ll spend some more time exploring. Of course, the biggest thing for the FB Reunion is New York. I live fairly close to NY, about 30-50 miles. Close enough that if you want to go to “the city”, you can just hop a train with little or no advanced planning.

They did a very nice job in capturing the “big city” feeling of New York. It’s also very big and easy to get lost! Badtz Maru must run this town. He’s everywhere. On the billboards and even makes a personal appearance in Lincoln Center.

I don’t know what the fate of HKO’s NY will be. I hope it’s permanant, but right now it’s decorated in a highly seasonal style, and the entrance is in an odd location, right on the shores of Sanrio Harbour. But if you look at the world map, it’s actually west of London. So we’ll see what happens to it.If you look at the zone map, there are quite a few cultural icons: the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State, and a few others. And like the real NY, it’s an island, with a few bridges connecting various locations. So for now, here’s just the zone map, and I’ll explore a little later. At least I don’t need to worry about muggers. Maybe.