Yesterday (Sunday, Sept 27), I had over 20k Kitty Points. This morning, I have 30 Loyalty Points. What gives?

Went to the NY Anime Fest. Didn’t buy anything, and didn’t cosplay. But it was still fun. It was at the Javits Convention Center, which is right across the Hudson via the ferry. About an hour drive to the ferry, and 10 minutes across, so it’s not too bad. Worse thing about it is Route 3 traffic. The ferry is the last exit before the Lincoln Tunnel, so you might be stuck at the mercy of traffic.

Anyways, here are a few photos. Between me and my friend, we actually took quite a few, more than I could post here, so I posted about 60 of them on my Facebook profile. If you wanna see, just feel free to send a friend invite.

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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.

To “us”, HKO means “Hello Kitty Online”. But did you know it’s an acronym also used for the Hong Kong Observatory?

Some random googling today came back with a hit which said Moon phase icon now featured on HKO front page. Of course, my first reaction was “oooh, is this a new feature? Like having night and day and stuff?”.

Well, I thought it was interesting.

Oh and looking at the (other) HKO page, it looks like Hong Kong is having a severe weather event. Hope y’all are OK!

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 needed to go to the pet store today, but I got there too early and it wasn’t open yet. So to spend the time, I figured to walk around Target for a while. They’re a licensed Sanrio distributor. And I’m feeling blue, so you can’t go wrong with Hello Kitty to help cheer you. So…

There was a nice set of plushies in various poses, but I have a weakness for pretty Asian women, so I liked the Japanese style on this one.

There were some other plushies and things there, and a few “35th” items, but I have to say, some of these newer products are getting a little too gaudy. The colors are totally garish, and the outfits and poses are unappealing. Note to Sanrio: a lot of appeal (IMO) of Kitty is the pure simplicity of her. Don’t forget that foundation.

And I’ve been wanting to buy an aluminum water bottle for some time, but never seem to remember when I am in a store. I drink a lot of water, and lately you hear all sorts of news about the dangers of plastic water bottles. I saw two Kitty bottles, but one was just way too small. This was a little bigger, but not as big as I’d like, but I guess it’ll do. It says 0.6L, but I’m metrically impaired, so I have no idea. I’d guess about 14 ounces.

And then… I was wandering the bedding aisles. I really wouldn’t mind having a set of Kitty sheets. It’s not like anyone ever shares my bed :P But in Target, all the stuff is for Twin sized beds, and I have a Full. I’m sure if I looked elsewhere I could find a set of Full sheets, shams, and stuff. But this fleece blanket caught my eye.

Oh and Target loves to cater to impulse buyers like me. On one end-cap was a display of awesome looking chocolates. And for a chocolate lover like me, it drew me like a fly to honey.  I haven’t tried them yet.

I did buy some other stuff, but mostly male necessities, and there’s no reason to post those, right? But when I got out of Target, it was still 8:45, fifteen minutes until Petsmart opened, so I went to Panara to have some breakfast. I dunno how popular these are elsewhere, but there are quite a few locations in New Jersey. They’re an artsy “lifestyle” type of place, like Starbucks. And like Starbucks, they’re expensive. But unlike Starbucks, their food is actually very good, and probably worth it (can you tell I don’t like Starbucks?). Each store bakes their own breads daily. So I ordered an egg, bacon and cheese sandwich, and this is what I got:

ONE skimpy slice of bacon, and barely a slice of cheese. Sheesh. Well, it was good, but probably not worth $8.

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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Home from Atlantic City after seeing Heaven and Hell. Great show. All of these guys are living legends, and without exaggerating, there’s probably at least 100 years of combined musical experience among them. Geezer and Iommi have been in Sabbath from the start (altho there was a gap in Geezer’s membership), Dio was with Rainbow from the start, and Vinnie was been with Sabbath when Dio came on-board.

Although they didn’t headline, a local (PA) band named Halestorm opened.

Took some pix, and tried to take a vid, but my cellphone camera (Palm Centro) isn’t really that fantastic, so everything came out pretty lousey. CJ took some pix, but it’ll be a few days before I can get a copy of those. I’m not even gonna bother with the vid, cause it’s all blown out, light and music.

But here are two pix for you to enjoy. Or even if you don’t enjoy, here are two pix anyways. One thing I am impressed with is the respect they all give each other on-stage. Dio doesn’t take the spot from Iommi, and Iommi gives the stage to Dio, and all of them recognized Geezer’s and Vince’s solos. You can see Dio in front here on the first pic.

Then Dio backs off for Tony to play a solo.

It was an age range, from the “too old to rock and roll, too young to die” group to the 20somethings. I wanted seats, so I got balcony seating, but the majority of people in the balcony were pretty dull. All the energy was in general admission on the floor. The women sitting in front of me even turned around and told me to cool it. Well. Aren’t we the mature lass?

Got body-checked when Vince tossed his drum-sticks up to the balcony. It was IN MY HAND, and the guy next to me slammed me. I still have the mark. Couldn’t get any of Iommi’s picks, tho, they were too light to be thrown up into balcony. Tried to scour the floor afterwards, but that offered no joy.

And finally, we didn’t gamble either. We checked out the craps tables (three of them) at the Showboat, where the House of Blues is, but man, talk about no energy there, either.

Kinda excited. Going to Atlantic City this weekend to see Heaven & Hell at the House of Blues.

FWIW, this is basically the same band as the Dio-fronted Sabbath. Dio did three albums with Sabbath, but at the moment I can only recall Heaven and Hell and The Mob Rules. I guess they can’t call themselves Sabbath? So I guess this is more of a “reunion” kind of thing. Apparently the only person not playing is Bill Ward, who chose not to participate.

I had wanted to go see them at MSG this past Tuesday, but the logistics just didn’t work out. The doors opened at 7pm, and so we would have had to catch a 5pm train into NYC. That would give us no time to eat before the show. Either that, or we’d have dinner and that would mean we would miss the opening act, which was Coheed and Cambria. I would have liked to see them, but what can you do?

So we opted for the Atlantic City show instead, which apparently does not have an opening act. Oh well. So to kinda get me in the mood, I looked on YT for some 2009 videos:

Check Iommi, he’s got awesome stage presence. He’s a fantastic guitarist, but he’s not arrogant. Iommi is the only member of Sabbath who’s been with the band from the beginning to now, he could definitely have a case of ego, but it doesn’t look like it.

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.