So, how close to real-life is this? Starr is on the phone, Ghost is asleep on the bed, and I’m glued to the TV.

Nov 1 is Kitty’s birthday, and all the servers seem to be having big events. SEA’s started at 8PM SG/MY time. That is 7AM my time, so that was perfect for me.

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If you’ve not been playing on the SEA HKO server, you may not realize that we got our old GMs back!

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It looks like the SEA version of HKO will be going live on October 15. You can run AutoUpdate and get the latest patch. Let’s just hope they don’t get the “patch of death” that NA got (the one with the mobs on steroids).

Here are some screenies of people at end of CB. The GM was giving away anything we wanted, so after a little bit of time, everyone was all fancy. I can only imagine, and hope, that these will eventually appear in the Item Mall. Some of these are really nice.

Lots of screenshots after the break…

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HKO-NA shuts down shortly, and one of the events was a GM will give you whatever you want. Of course, everything is going to be deleted. The GM also ported us to NY, so we could explore a little bit. No screenshots of NY, you can see previous postings of that. All the Christmas stuff is gone, the NPCs are pretty unfriendly, etc. So there’s not much to do.

Bi was logged in, but in a perma-afk state. I thought it would be funny to ask the GM to port her, too. If she came back and saw she was in NY, she’d be all sorts of confused :P

Well, I thought it was funny. I hope she doesn’t get mad at me.

I’ll post some more later.

Just sitting in my house, enjoying the last few hours of HKO. I’ll miss all my friends as well, once Aeria shuts down. We’ll have to see what their schedule is for Open Beta.

And I’m not in the mood to go out into the wild and do quests, not with this insane damage mobs are doing, so I guess I’ll just wait for the big bash they’re planning later on.

This was posted via the (new) in-game blogging feature. It’s called the “mini blogger”, and I think it’s a great addition to the game. It’s only available while you’re on your farm or in your house. Press F9 and it’ll give you a window where you can type in your blog.

After it was posted, I edited this via SanrioTown. I personally didn’t like the “more” tag, and the title was slightly generic. Neither of which you can change in-game, but that’s not even a gripe, just an observation. I also have blog categories set up, but the in-game blogger defaults it to “uncategorized”.

The image is rather tiny, but I guess that’s a tradeoff they chose to make. Everyone has their own preferences for the sizes of images posted to their blogs.

When Aeria was at PAX, they had a contest on Twitter so people who didn’t get to go could have a chance to win. It was a random selection from people who tweeted Kitty’s father and mother’s name. Any HKO player should know that like the back of their hand. A few days later, I got a private tweet telling me I was the winner.

Oh and beware,  as usual, there’s a little bit of hot air at the end…

When I got home, there was a package sitting at my door…

It was rattling :O Hmm… Lots of stuff fell out of the box!

Underneath is a tee-shirt. From left at top: a congratulatory letter (sealed for the photo, is all); a DVD of HKO!; a magnetized refrigerator notepad; and one of those insanity-inducing tilt games where you have to get the balls into the holes.

But wait, that’s not all

A little Hello Kitty tote bag, stuffed with goodies.

Underneath is a sheet of stickers; a Hello Kitty candy tin; an HK eraser shaped like a Popsicle;  a pen and two pencils; HK band-aids; and an Aeria branded 1g memory stick.

Whew. And wow! Thanks Aeria!

And now for the rant I promised you.

There have been a few, but not many, instances of HK haters showing up in-game or on the forums. Surprisingly few, actually. But see, this is something they’re not getting.

Not only is there the “social” aspect of HKO, where I’ve met many people online, including some pretty girls that, well dot dot dot (nothing bad, just that they make me forget my name when I think about it). I know some HKO players even have “HKO meetups”, where they all get together and have lunch or something. Alas, no HKO meetups in my neighborhood :P

But how many other games give you the opportunity to win real-world goods? This is the FOURTH time I’ve won something related to HKO. Sure, you may have tier 16 ubertank gear from the final boss of whatever-the-latest-raid-instance-is, but this is real stuff. I can put this stuff in my pocket, bring to my friends to show, and say “look what I got!”.

I think what I’m trying to say is that the HKO “experience” is not just virtual rewards, but tangible. I hope that continues. It is one of the things that really sets HKO apart.

They’ve announced the end of NA CB for Saturday, Sept 19 at 23:59 PDT (GMT-7). No word on the next phase of testing, but I have a bet with myself that it’ll be sometime in October. Kitty’s birthday is November 1, remember, and it would be a big publicity thing for Sanrio if some of these regionals were live and having some sort of in-game celebration.

Anyways, my “final” avatar.

Level 30 (the max), which is kind of unfortunate since we’re gonna be wiped. But what can you do? The outfit is a male “Silk Traditional Chinese Outfit” which I got when a GM did their “farm hopping” stunt. The hat is a”Green Propeller”, from the same event. The shoes are unnamed, but they were from an in-game trivia event.

I really like the visual. And it goes well with the Samurai  topknot I got in Paris, although it’s obscured by the propeller beanie. And the facial tattoo was an pre-beta event Aeria ran, but I don’t think I like it.

But they’ll all be wiped, boohoo, so I hope these will eventually be in the item mall.

What’s with Aeria and their Draconian enforcement of “the rules”? Apparently, several accounts were blocked with little or no explanation:

http://basicktforum01.sanriotown.com/scripts/mb2/mb2.cgi?rm=show_topic&period=0&topic_id=40701

And there are similar postings over at aeria forums and on their shoutbox.

According to the posters, they were disconnected immediately after their “infractions” and then perma-banned. If that is the case, there must have been a GM monitoring at that moment.

Whatever happened to warning people?

I know HKO has a “jail” where players can’t talk, PM or even emote. Why not try to pull them there and explain to them what they did wrong?

When I asked about this, here is the response:

So they’ll basically ban you, no reason given, no explanations, no warnings. And it even sounds like you have no chance of you ever getting a “stay of execution”.

Nice. Now any time I get disconnected, I wonder if I’ve been banned yet.

Wonder how Gloot.net is doing with their launch?

I’m tempted to delete my last post, but I won’t. I just want to be able to convey some of the concerns which I have, and which apparently I am not alone in having. Others seemed to have expressed these, mostly in-game.

I don’t want to bash on the publisher Aeria, and I don’t want to bash on the developer, Sanrio, and I don’t want to bash on the GMs of either of those organizations, so please don’t take it that way.

I was just in-game trying to work up some more money, and am still (even after playing SEA and ID) unsure what the best way to make money is. Mining and stunning monsters usually gives items that sell from 1-3 gold a pop, so even at 50 a stack, that’s no more than 150 gold for a full stack of stuff. And we all know, the stuff you sell now is the stuff you will immediately need for the next quest.

A single piece of Iron Ore sells for 4. You need four piece of Iron Ore to make two pieces of Fine Iron, which sell 6 gold each, so four Iron Ore net you 12 gold if you turn it into Fine Iron. But those four Iron Ore would sell for 16 if you sold them as raw materials. You will lose 4 gold if you turn them into Fine Iron.

To unfortunately compare this to other games, most refined products usually sell for more than the raw materials.

I do hate sounding like I’m whining or complaining, although there are times when there’s just not much else you can do, other than air out your gripes, vent your feelings, whatever. So, this is kind of long, too.

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This sounds nice, The Adventurer’s Journal, where you can blog from in-game. Since they have e-mail from in-game, it only seems natural (to me) that we should be able to blog from in-game as well.

I did post this on the forum, but I’ll blog it about anyways *shrug*

The Filipino version of HKO starts their Founders’ Beta on August 17, and you can find the download infor, either ftp or torrent, from their announcement page:

http://www.levelupgames.ph/2009/08/hello-kitty-online-founders-beta-starts-on-august-17/

I did apply for their Founders’, and was even accepted, even though I bluntly told them I was from the US. I think I said something even like  “feel free to reject my application”.Unfortunately, the download site is locked to PH only, and I can’t access either the ftp or torrent. And if they block the downloads, I wonder if they’ll block the game itself? Yea, I tried a proxy, but it was really really slow. So I don’t think you’ll be seeing me there. Say hi to everyone for me. Especially Abby, if she happens to be there  :(

Aeria, the NA publisher for HKO, recently tweeted (and posted on their facebook):

http://twitter.com/aeriagames/status/2906774482

Basically they’ve opened registration for beta sign-ups. Check the tweet above for the link to the sign up page. They have a simple quiz, which no fan of HK or HKO should have a problem with :P

And am I the only one to think that their choice of words, “Happy?”, sounds kind of  snippy? Or am I being (as usual) overly sensitive and should just keep my opinions to myself?