In one of my blog postings, a few of us got to discussing books and stuff. Having been warned that reading is a hobby of mine, they continued to comment, therefore I must post a blog else I burst.

I’m an IT specialist, so of course, in my library are any number of technical books; network security, firewalls, operating systems and stuff. I’m pretty geeky in that regards, because I just love to learn new stuff, and will just learn stuff, sometimes just for the fun of learning something new. Actually that trait doesn’t halt with computer stuff either.

I like science fiction and fantasy, but I really like historical fiction. One of my favorite authors is Stephen Lawhead, and one of my favorite series by him is the Pendragon cycle. It is an historically accurate interpretation of the King Arthur legends. When I say “historically accurate”, it is not based on the modern romantic King Arthur, but rather the Celtic basis, probably around the 5th century AD. Lawhead has a few other books which I’ve liked. Byzantium is similar but deals with a fictional reinterpretation of the life of Saint Aidan (I think that is the correct Aidan). He did another story based on St. Patrick, but I did not read that one yet.

Which touches on another hobby of mine, historical linguistics. I told you I love to learn,  and early English (Old English, a.k.a. Anglo Saxon) is my favorite. So it isn’t a surprise when authors like Lawhead (and even more so, Tolkien, who incorporated a lot of Saxon language) grab my attention.

I’ve actually tried to read Beowulf in the original (AS) language, but it is effectively a different language, so I didn’t really get too far. Oh, by the way, my pet wolf in HKO is named Beo :P

But I won’t go into that, because if you thought I was verbose before, well, don’t get me started on language and stuff. Although, I sadly do not speak anything other than English. I’ve tried to learn other languages, but this is a clear example of needing to apply what you learn, because simple book-learning is unfeasible.

I saw this on Abby’s twitter (it was her latest tweet), and decided to do a bit of googling, and found these:

http://www.warcry.com/news/view/89765-Ex-Turbine-ite-Robert-Ferrari-Joins-Sanrio-Digital

http://games.ign.com/articles/957/957019p1.html

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/64599

So this sounds like good news. I want this game to succeed. I think the industry needs this game. But at the same time, I think I want to “keep it to myself”, which is a feeling I suspect many of the players can relate with.

But since it has also popped up some of the more popular gaming news blogs, it sounds like pretty serious news. I don’t want to speculate, but gosh I just can’t help it! I wonder what bearing, if any, this has on the existing infrastructure? Sounds like this office will be a satellite, and I guess the main office (wherever that is? Hong Kong?) will be HQ?

PS, I don’t actually use my twitter. I start it every now and again, with a neat little program called twirl. I don’t think I’ve ever even posted a tweet for myself.

Kind of an odd match? What does one have to do with the other? Well, taxes cause stress, and (for me) coffee is a great stress relief.

Finished my taxes today, and received confirmation that they were accepted. I owe the feds $50, but the state owes me $200. I guess it all works out. And like I knew, it didn’t actually take me long to do, so I just needed to buckle down and do it.

But on the topic of coffee, I love coffee. I drink several cups a day, starting with my stop at Dunkin Donuts in the morning, on my way to work. It makes me slightly chuckle, when the guy at DD has my coffee all made as soon as he sees my car pull up. I guess you could call that “regular”.

At home I have a Senseo machine, which makes a great cup of coffee in less than two minutes. Not exactly espresso, but it is better than making a whole pot of coffee, and wasting more than half of it. I usually have one cup of coffee when I get home.

But I don’t like Starbucks coffee! I don’t like the taste, and I think they charge too much.

So, having a cup of coffee while doing my taxes helped me relax a little bit and get my nose to the wheel. Am I hooked on coffee? Probably :-/

Today is the day for goodies! Actually, I’m still avoiding filing my taxes.

First, I went to Target, and decided to buy myself a treat.

While I was in Target, I was browsing around the vitamin section. I’m big on natural remedies. But I when saw this, can you imagine what went thru my head? The packaging didn’t say what it was good for. I did not buy it. I’m kind of tempted to buy it, wondering what it’ll do to me? :-/

Then, my project package DID arrive. It was here LAST WEEK, but the post office has been holding it, because I needed to sign the customs for it. It would have been nice if they TOLD me it came!

Second, my new Amazon Kindle 2 arrived! I’m a big reader.

These are just a few things that popped into my head, here and there, which I think would add value. I’m going to “prioritize” these based on my own uninformed knowledge of how the GM team works… and I dunno if they’ll ever even read this, or consider any of this, but at least I’ve done what I could. I hope they do not see this as being overbearing or pushy.

• case sensitive player names. We’ve seen at least one case of two different players having a name collision; sharing the same name, with the only difference being capitalization. Would it be possible to make character generation test against existing names while being case-insensitive yet still maintain case-sensitivity in-game, so that we may retain our “personality”?

• More keyboard shortcuts. It has been mentioned before, worth mentioning again. Movement keys especially. With the arrow keys being currently unassigned, this is a natural growth.
• Configurable chat filter. I like the chat filter, but I think it should be possible to enable/disable this per user preference. It is very hard to account for many of the possible offensive words, so a “stock” dictionary, with the ability to customize filters might come in handy.
• manual AFK. Our players are automatically flagged afk after about 10 minutes, but sometimes I need to go afk, and wish to set an afk flag without the default timeout.
• AFK auto responder to private message. Similar to above. At least once, I went afk, and someone sent me a PM. They figured out that I was not at my keyboard, but I still would have liked some sort of way to indicate to them that I wasn’t just being rude.
• chat tab indicators. We tab between general chat and PM chats quite often, and sometimes I’ll tab out of a PM tab, and miss a message. Some sort of visual clue on the PM tabs, maybe a flash, or something, that new text has arrived.
• bigger farm storage for bigger farms. Even if it was just one extra column of storage, that would be a bonus. It seems like there should be some other perks in the more expensive farms. Inventory management is a mechanic for all games, and no matter how much you have, it is never enough, so I’m not looking for some insane or big buff, just a small benefit to owning a larger farm.
• Logging out on our farm? When I log in, I’m back at the Farm Manager. I know the farm is instanced, and disappears when I am not logged in, but it would be nice to have a quiet place to login.
• quick teleport to our farms. I know everyone wants teleports, transport systems, etc, but that is not really what I am thinking of. Many games have a “home” spell. It doesn’t necessarily take you out of danger, but just gives you a quick way to get home (and logoff in a safe place! which is a process I am used to in other games)
• visitors on your farm. When people visit your farm, if you leave the farm, they are automatically kicked out. But that includes the house. I think the house should be considered in the same class as the farm, and don’t kick them automatically.
• Sound effects… Having gone thru FB with no sound FX, I was pleased to hear sounds. Except for one. I think we all know what that one is. I have no idea on sound management. Maybe configurable sounds?  Maybe sound volume that is separate from music volume? I don’t know
• Code optimization. The client is a bit fat and heavy. If other processes are running (virus scan), HKO would often become sluggish. This was most highly visible during the loading screens.

HH was open for only two weeks, but it feels like longer. And now that it is closed for the interim, I think this emoticon bests describes it…

I think I’ve posted all the screenshots I wanted. I have some more, but mostly for my own benefit.

So now back to the Real World.

I’ve still not completed my income taxes, but I don’t think anyone needs an excuse for procrastination there. But now I don’t have an excuse. Even more so since my filing is extremely easy (single, no dependents, etc). The deadline is April 15, so I still have at least one month. I wonder how long I will continue to put this off…

Made a dentist visit yesterday. I’m not behind on my visits, but I should have gone at the beginning of February, so this is a good time to just catch up on that.

Still haven’t gotten my car back from the auto body shop. They estimate March 2nd.

Unfortunately, none of my hobby projects have come to fruition. But that is just delays in the parts being shipped. One of the risks of using a low-cost production house, I guess.

And at work, we’ve had three directors in the past two months! One director was re-assigned. His replacement decided to depart. Now we’re wondering how long the new-new director will last! It’s not like we’re a bunch of Misfits, har har har! Yes, bad joke.

I posted this as a comment on Miyaws blog, but I decided to post it here.

Sung to “Where have all the flowers gone”; see below if you’re not familiar with the song.

Where have all the GMs gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the GMs gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the GMs gone?
They have left us and now they’re gone
When will we see them return?
When will we see them return?

Some of us (including me!) had Kitty visit our farms. She also was seen randomly running around various towns. I don’t know which GM is behind this, but I do thank them.

As much as I (we?) want to see more of Kitty like this, it is good that the GMs have restrained themselves from doing it more often. Rare appearances like this help to keep the magic alive, and it doesn’t become routine. When you unexpectedly see Kitty, you want to run after her (she runs FAST!), but she will disappear before you know it, leaving you wonder when the next magical moment will be.

No real theme to these screenshots. I took them for one reason or another, so I will just share them anyways, along with the usual hot-air commentary.

On the last day, I was moping around in Florapolis. I had never really noticed some of these graphics details before.

The house looks almost like a face. I wonder if it is deliberate? See the eye, and then the tongue sticking out?

Look at the feet on the small billboard! It would be awesome if it had a random”jump” animation.

These whimsical little details capture some of the wonder of SanrioLand.

Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of not focusing on small details. When I start playing a game, I will notice the graphics, but only as an overall impression. I pay more attention to learning the interface and mechanics.

By the time I have a basic grasp of the mechanics, I’m usually deep into the game. At that point, the graphics are not exactly incidental, but they are more atmospheric, rather than definitive.

Which is a shame, because an artist put a lot of hard work and imagination into drawing these. So I do periodically pause to look around in wonder, and the final day of HH was an appropriate time to take in these details.

This is inside a building named the Pantheon, in Paris. Since there are not NPCs, no quests, it’s a quiet building. The detail is fascinating. You can almost read the lettering on the plaques, and you can see the reflections in what appears to be a marble floor.

Those of us who did the Cupid quest chain may recognize this, the Paris Post Office. Again, the attention to detail is wonderful. You can see the desk where customers would address their letters and packages. And the post drop boxes, both for regular mail and air mail. Look at the community bulletin board above the drop boxes.

I think that is it for now. You kind of get the point.

HKO wouldn’t be anywhere without the GMs, the Game Masters. We see them in-game, helping us, answering questions, and just being there in case of trouble. How many times do we see them, with out realizing what little we know of them behind-the-scenes? They are real people, doing real work, somewhere in the world. Meetings, coding and debugging, all the stuff we end up taking for granted. We see them at all hours, at all days. They’re the first ones we blame when something goes wrong. But it seems like we rarely acknowledge them when things are running smooth.

So here is an alphabetical tribute to the GMs I have met, or at least seen, in-game.  If you are a GM and you are not listed here, please do not feel slighted. It just means I did not actually see you in game. I suspect those GMs whom I didn’t see very often (or at all) may have a role in the more out-of-game issues. There are many more GMs than I realized, who may have been online at times when I was not. But a full list can be found on the forums.

Please also beware that this is kind of image-heavy!

According to her forum siggy, Abby’s title is the HKO Community Manager. She appears to be the one who manages the official website, the events and news blogs, doing public relations. She’s also the sweetest person you’ll ever meet, so say nothing bad about her else I shall hunt you down. It is no secret (anymore) that I adore her from afar, and at her command, I would be on a plane to wherever she is, so that I may adore her at her feet. The crime is not in admitting your affections but rather in not trying. One must take a risk, else one has nothing to gain. Better to suffer the slings and arrows being ridiculed, rather than pine away in silence. I hope I do not embarrass her nor cause her grief with this.

I’ve not run into AVA very often. I suspect his hours were of a schedule opposite of mine. As I posted in an earlier blog, he stopped by to visit my farm one day. He made fun of my dead crops.

I did not run into Bacon too often either. I have him added to my buddy list, and while I would see name as being on-line, I did not actually run into him. I wonder where the GMs hide when they’re online? I know they can be inviso. Makes you wonder, the next time you might be just sitting around having a causal chat?

I only saw BogChong once, and that was when he was AFK in London, when I grabbed this screenie. He did broadcast a hello message during the start of Happy Hearts, but he was another elusive GM.

Cal’s schedule appears to have been more compatible with EST timezone, which is my local time. When I logged in, after work, usually around 2pm, he was often sitting around the Harbor, and I think he would logoff around 6pm. I would try to visit him when I could. Cal was the epitome of calm. During the period when we were having server issues, he would not break under stress, always remaining polite and courteous.

I did not run into Dark at all, so I SS’ed this one on the final day. Sorry Dark :(

Headphone was another GM I did not see except during the last day.

Layla dropped by to visit us during ripplecloud’s photoshoot. She looks like Miyaw’s twin! We did not get to chat very long, and she blipped out after a brief period. Oh the busy life of a GM.

Miyaw changed her hat near the last few days, but this is such an adorable outfit, I just had to use the image, even if it is out of date. Isn’t she cute? Every time I see this, I just want to squeeze her and make funny noises. After HKO’s opening to the public, she was often in the Harbor, and a few of us would go and visit with her. She was usually in a monster form, a spider or a ‘dillo. But after a few days, she  stopped spending most of her time there, so I did not see her too much near the end :( She was kind to open her farm for visitors during those last few hours, and I think many players took the opportunity to do just so. She has an artistic eye for decorating her farm. Talking to her, and reading her blog, I get the feeling that she is a ball of pure energy.

I only saw Neverender once in game, and that was in the Harbor after the opening to the public. I wanted to get a SS of him, but every time I walked close to him, he would walk away from me. (sniff), was I having deodorant malfunctions or something?  I have him on my Buddy list as well, and only saw him online briefly, and did not see him at the good-bye party. I wonder if he was the GM that was gleefully hovering his fingers over the “shutdown” button? Since I did not actually get a screenie of him, I shamelessly swiped this image from Ripplecloud, so I hope she does not mind (http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn10/ripplecloud/HKOarchive/the-GMs.jpg)

Another elusive GM. I am sorry T-Rex, that I did not meet you nor chat with you.

Zel is also on my Buddy list, and he was on at hours fairly opposite of mine, so yet another GM with whom I did not interact very much. While most of the other GMs were wearing their “banana outfits”, Zel appears to be rebellious and only wearing his McDonalds helmet. During the final day around the farm manager, he was apparently hanging around in invizo mode, and when he appeared, he was totally invading my personal space. Either that or he was trying to lift my wallet.

I don’t rightly know who Kev is. We’re all familiar with his name, the Kevent, the multiple Kevs that periodically run around. He appears to have an official position within HKO and/or Sanrio (not entirely sure how their corporate structure works), but remains an enigma. He appeared once while a few of the other GMs were hanging around in the Harbor, but he didn’t stay very long.

So these are some screenies of the final hours of Happy Hearts. I know many other players are posting their screenies, but I can’t help but join the fun.

About an hour before the Helping Hearts turn-ins began, Miyaw opened her farm for visitors. Since we’ve only seen it in screenies, it was fun to actually visit her.

She has a cute grass hut for a house. It looks like even the GMs are waiting delivery of their furnishings.

At this point, many of my guild started to congregate for the final production push. The event turn-in ended at 10pm, and around 9:55pm, I was starting to get a little nervous. Someone finally called Abby to tally our donations.

We crafted 5 shirts and 1 bag.

After this, Kaito from HKOF and serenitycat from the pirates joined us, and we all pooled our leftover materials to craft bags and/or shirts, as anonymous donations. I didn’t pay attention to this process, I was just hanging around because Abby was still there. But I needed to say goodbye to my new farm for now, so I left them to their devices for a few minutes.

When I stepped outside my farm, it was a mobscene in London.

There was much chatter, lag, and excitement, so I just hung around for a little while. But shortly, Bacon invited us to Paris for a good-bye screenie.

We all gathered around the Arc de Triomphe for a group shot.

This was the final screenie just as the server went down.

Seems like tee got the last word in!

At this point the server was shutdown. I did not receive the disconnected message, but I think that was due to lag on my part. My internet connection has been acting up terribly lately, ever since Cablevision came out to “fix it” for me.

One of the sweetest memories I’ll have of the HH send-off is at the 5 minute mark, Abby sent me a PM. I did screenie it, but I won’t post it, cause it’s MINE, and she thought of me, however briefly, at those last few moments. It just says “see you around”. Too bad my mind isn’t fast enough to think of something other than “bye bye for now”. C’est la vie.

I have a bunch of other sceenies I’ll post eventually, but I want to do it in some sort of thematic manner. Shots of friends, GMs, and other randomness.

It’s a bitter-sweet goodbye for now. I had a lot of fun in this event, I think more than I did in the prior FB and CR. I don’t know why that is. I made many new friends, and just had a grand old time. I know the GM team will be using their collected data to analyze performace, bugs, improvements, etc, but I think many of us are eagerly waiting for the next phase, be it Open Beta, or another brief test.

Well, Happy Hearts is over. It ended at 11pm my time, and I wake up at 4am, so as soon it was over, I jumped into bed. Didn’t actually fall asleep until well beyond midnight. Oh well. You can see me in that screenshot, too. It looks like I’m the only one wearing a derby hat.

I have some screenshots I’ll rummage through when I get home from work later, but in the meantime, I noticed that they posted the Happy Hearts quest winners.

No screenies today. I was at Rippleclouds photo-shoot, but it was her idea, so I don’t want to steal her thunder by posting before she does. And besides, I like to read her commentaries and captions.

So something a little different. Some of you have seen and commented on my wooden boxpig, but here is a little confession: that was not the first attempt to do so.

This is about 2.5×2.5 inches, but you can see it did not come out very good at all. I do not have any power-tools, so I needed to cut the wood using just hand-tools. It is very hard to cut wood for a perfect cube using just hand-tools.

I simply cut six pieces the exact same size and shape, not accounting for overlap, so the pieces did not fit together very well. Also, it appears that the wood I was using (1/4″ plywood, I think) was warped, so there are gaps and just bad workmanship.

This would have been the bottom. I wanted to leave a gap so I could frill out where the boar’s skirt was, and leave room for the feet to stick out. It is not easy to see in the picture, but again, the accuracy of the cuts is hideous. Totally uneven.

I still wanted to make such a project, so I sort of stuck this one aside, as a reminder to try to see how I could do this better. The only other way I could figure, by cutting six exact sized panels of wood, would be to bevel the edges, so that they align perfect. But without any serious tools, there is just no way I could bevel the edges. I am definitely not a Norm Abram.

I remembered going into the crafts store to by another box for another project but I used a recipe box, which is oblong and not suitable for this purpose. But I figured, if they had that shape, maybe they’d have a nice cube?

Anyways, that is that.

So Friday night, I’m sitting on my farm, killing off coffee trees to generate bad wood, which is a quantity-rich ingredient for silk. It takes 20 bad wood, and it is roughly a 60-75% drop rate. You may also get magic wood.

At first, I was planting five or ten trees, and spacing them apart, and harvesting them to death. But someone said it would be better to let them die naturally. It just takes a very long time for them to die without intervention.

Tigerlyly stopped by for a brief visit, you can see her lost amongst the coffee trees. It looks like Berry fell asleep in the forest.

While I was growing this batch, Abby announced a game of hide-and-seek. She would broadcast hints where she is, but she would be invisible. You had to find the NPC she was near, and normal chat, say which NPC she was standing by. As a reward, she gave you a choice of about three different types of raw materials.

Unfortunately, in this excitement, I did not take many screenies, so this is just her broadcast announcement. I did not catch her myself. I got “THIS” close to her once (someone else was able to type faster than me), and I knew where she was another time, but by then, there were already three people who found her.

I really like these impromptu in-game events.

I am farming for bad wood, because I don’t really want to be out in the wild, gathering nodes that are already tapped to their limits. And I heard of an unfortunate incident which resulted in bad consequences; not having been there, I can only imagine tempers flared and things got out of hand.

These kind of incidents do make me sad. I don’t want people to leave the game for something like this, and I would not want to lose friends. Resource nodes are tight, the requirements are high, and everyone wants to be in the top three. But this is hopefully secondary to the ultimate goal, a charity event which has real world donations, real world consequences, similar to the Food4Friends event.

I know it sounds altruistic, and it is. Let’s not ever forget courtesy. FB had a couple of incidents which left a sour taste in my mouth, and this is why I  chose to stick to my farm. The wood is a much needed ingredient, so I know I am not slacking in my participation. But I do not want to risk loosing friends over issues like this.

Anyways, enough with the pontification. After that, I went back to my farm, and started to plant another batch of coffee. When suddenly, I had an even better visitor! Sorry Kitty, you’re taking a back-seat now!

Thank you for dropping by Abby :) I know I said it before, and I don’t want to sound trite with repeatedly saying “thank you”, but it is sincere. She took time out of her busy day to come and chat with me for a few minutes, about various different things. When she asked if she was taking me away from farming, I said never!; I would interrupt whatever I was doing for her!

That night, I went to sleep with a smile.

A few lucky people had a surprise visit from Hello Kitty. Truth be told, I was feeling a little envious, and even a little sad that she hadn’t come to visit me. Oh, I know I’m just one face in many, but it’s still nice to be noticed by such a celebrity.

Today, when I logged on, I popped into my farm, just for a private moment as I drank my first coffee of the day, and what do you know!

And this reminded me that yesterday AVA dropped by for a brief visit. I wish Abby would drop by for a coffee or a visit one day, but I know she must be extremely busy with everything, with no time to pay attention to a noodle-head like me. But even if she did visit, I’d probably panic and forget my own name and babble like a… Well, that word is censored in-game, so use your imagination! I hope I don’t make her angry at me, by posting that, and tell me to step off! OMG now maybe I need to delete this before I get in trouble. See what happens?

When my excitement wore off, I got to work, and noticed something new about the crafting panel. Either that, or I was oblivious to this previously.

Notice the little progress bar in the lower right hand? This appears to have been added to many action screens:

And finally:

This is great. When dawn arrives, any previous water you have on your plants will disappear. So if you want the most efficient use of watering your crops, you’ll want to water them at the beginning of the day. It is very easy, at least for me, to get into a “zombie mode” and not pay attention to the water or the time indicator. And it gives you a smile, too. “A new day!” with all the promise that a new day brings!