Hi guys!  Is everyone enjoying HKO??

I am, now that I have my character back!

Not too long ago, I attempted to link my SanrioTown account to my AeriaGames account (as prompted when I tried logging in one day), only to find that doing so reset my character!  Aaah!  I was really worried for a moment, mostly for the Birthday Tokens I’d acquired thus far.

Now, let me share with you how awesome AeriaGames’ customer support is.  Here is the correspondence between myself and the support staff over the last couple of days.

> BunnyWinx  sent a message using the contact form at
> http://www.aeriagames.com/contact.
>
> I posted this in the forums, and someone suggested I send the whole thing
> along to you guys. I can’t word it any better than what I posted in the
> thread, so I’m just going to copy it here. If any help can be offered, I
> would greatly appreciate it. I am very eager to participate in the
> Birthday event going on and the idea that I might miss it is tearful. ;~;
> The original thread is here:
> http://hko.forums.aeriagames.com/viewtopic.php?t=1247
> My message was as follows:
>
> ~~~~~
>
> So up until now, I’ve been logging into HKO with my SanrioTown e-mail and
> password. I always thought that was a little curious, because HKO is an
> AeriaGames title, which I have prior experience with through Domo and
> Megaten.
>
> So just now - literally seconds ago - I tried signing in with me
> AeriaGames info. A message came up saying that I could link my AeriaGames
> account with my SanrioTown account, which sounded pretty cool. I linked the
> two as directed (making sure to link my AeriaGames account with an existing
> SanrioTown account), got a message of confirmation, and then was prompted
> to close that little pop-up box and log in again for real.
>
> I did so.
>
> Upon logging in, I was prompted to create a new character. My existing
> character has been reset.
>
> I even tried going back and logging in with my SanrioTown information, as
> I have been for the past two days since Open Beta has been open (as well as
> all through CB), to find that that, too, led me to the character creation
> screen.
>
> Is this something that can be fixed, with a little tweaking in my account
> info? I have put a number of hours into my character in the past two days,
> especially into acquiring Birthday Tokens. Furthermore, checking for my
> character’s name’s availability (”BunnyWinx”) at the character creation
> screen tells me that that name is already in use. This actually gives me
> some hope, because I know that the data for my existing character is still
> out there somewhere.
>
> … So … um … help? :D;
>
>
> Edit: I realize that there is an option out there for unlinking one’s
> AeriaGames and SanrioTown account. Will doing that give me access to my
> character again? Of further note, I did not actually go through with the
> second character creation screen, so as of right now my accounts are
> attributed to no existing character (in my assumption). If such is the
> case, then I apologize for making this thread when this issue has already
> been addressed in other threads… but I hadn’t seen my specific situation
> mentioned in any of the other threads (maybe an error on my part - I admit
> I have not read every thread in full), so at this point I’m just unsure if,
> when my two accounts are unlinked, it will give me access to my existing
> character once again.

Dear BunnyWinx,

We are sorry for your account issue. We will look into the options for
correcting this. In the meantime, when you log in using your SanrioTown
account, which character appears, your old or new one?

We will get back to you with an update soon.

Kind Regards,

Team Aeria

Dear AeriaGames,

Thanks so much for replying!  I am deeply grateful that the issue is being looked into.  I just checked my thread in the forum again and it looks like I am not the only person to experience this.  Basically, it sounds like the root of the problem is that we logged into the game using our SanrioTown accounts instead of AeriaGames accounts.  There was nothing stating that we should do otherwise - players such as myself who participated in previous closed beta periods just signed in with our SanrioTown info out of habit, I guess.

By the way, I also noticed that I do not have the “Beta Founder” title with my username in the Aeria forums.  I think that this is because I played through the entire closed beta period with my SanrioTown account - there is no info in my Aeria profile that I ever played HKO!  Ack!  What makes this all the more frustrating is that all of this is completely my fault.  If I’d just played HKO with my Aeria account from the beginning than none of this would be happening, and I am very sorry for putting you through the trouble of fixing it now.

Perhaps I am overstepping my boundaries in asking this, but - is it still possible for my Aeria profile to be considered a Beta Founder?  The title itself is unimportant to me, but I’m afraid of missing out on the rewards granted in-game.

Oh, and I almost forgot - in answer to your question about what character appears when I log in: both logins take me to the character creation screen.  I didn’t go through with creating a new character because I was afraid that doing so would make my original character unobtainable.  Checking for username availability for “BunnyWinx” says that the name is already in use, so I cling to the small hope that the data for my original character still exists.

Thanks SO MUCH for your time,
Bridget

Dear BunnyWinx,

We are continuing to troubleshoot the issue. As part of this process we have
unlinked your accounts. Please attempt to login with your sanriotown account
and let us know if your character is still there.

We have also added the beta founder icon to your profile. :)

Please let us know the result,

Team Aeria

Dear AeriaGames,

Ohmygosh!!  It worked!  Yaaaay!  I’m so happy to have my original character back, with all of the levels and skills and items and Birthday Tokens and Loyalty Points I had with her.  And wow!  Such speedy service on your part.  I was really worried that I’d be unable to participate in Hello Kitty’s birthday events.  It’s so awesome to know that Aeria truly does care for its playerbase.  Hurray for you guys!

So basically, for now I just need to keep signing in with my SanrioTown account and not link my Aeria account to it, it seems.  I’m unsure how that will affect future events - it depends on if rewards are granted to the Aeria account and brought into the game through that username, or if rewards are deposited directly on the character in-game.  I’m not even sure if I’m describing that right, and I certainly can’t claim to know how all the technical aspects of these sorts of things are handled.  Regardless, it shouldn’t be too much of an issue, because the odds of me actually winning any events are fairly slim!  And if an issue of the sort does come up in the future, I suppose it’s just a matter of me contacting you guys to get it straightened out.  Now that I know how effectively (and swiftly!) these requests go through, I will certainly not hesitate to do so in the future.

Thanks again for helping me out, and for being all awesome and stuff, and for the forum title!
Bridget

Dear BunnyWinx,,

We are glad it worked! However, in order to receive your bunny slippers from
closed beta your account will need to be linked to an Aeria account. If you
want to try again it is up to you. If you run into the error again you can
always write us back and we will unlink your accounts, and figure out another
way to send you your closed beta rewards.

We’re glad everything worked out, and your character is still there!

Kind Regards,

Team Aeria

Dear Aeria Games,

Thanks again for the reply!
I realize that my rewards will not be granted to my character unless the accounts are linked.  However, for the time being I would like to continue accumulating Birthday Tokens with my character and participate in Hello Kitty’s birthday event on November 1st.  I worry that attempting to link accounts again (and missing a few more days of play time) would result in me missing out on trading those Tokens for rewards, or (gasp) missing Hello Kitty’s birthday party!

But in one week’s time, I will try linking accounts again, and I will let you know of the result.

Have a nice Halloween! c:
Bridget

Seriously, how cool are these guys?  I got my character back in only four days!  That’s great service!  Not all MMO publishers are nice like that, so it’s good to know that they’re out there.

Not much else to say besides all that, so I’m about to start playing HKO again and rack up some more Birthday Tokens!

I finally got my chance to play HKO when I got home from work yesterday!  Ah, it was nice to create my character and know for sure that there will not be a server wipe later, and that this BunnyWinx will be the BunnyWinx from here on out.  If that makes any sense.

I was so excited to be playing, I forgot to take screenshots!  But I’ve already made a handful of new friends.  DawnLaRee was the first SanrioTown name that I recognized.  There was also SarahJane, who recognized me right away from my post about kitty hats!!  Omg and there were soooo many others. @_@  I wish I could recall everyone else’s names.

The items available in the Party Master’s shop look so incredible!  How will we ever obtain enough Birthday Tokens in time to purchase what we want?? D8  I’m absolutely in love with the fan weapon, and I’d also like to have the pink bow hair ribbon (it had “Candy” in its name but I don’t remember what it was called exactly), and the cute white-and-pink top (which had “Angel” in its name but again, I forget its full name XD).  Some of the furniture is also quite awesome, especially the pink television.  I didn’t get far enough in the previous beta to experience Housing, so furniture and stuff would be a totally new experience for me. c:

So all of that added together comes to over 100 Birthday Tokens.  Aah!!  I only have 13!

Sounds like I need to get some people together and play that Emote minigame!

Omg how exciting!!

When this post came about, everyone was a little bit worried that Hello Kitty’s birthday events would only be available in those few countries who already have their Open Beta phase going on… but this morning, Aeria announced that the North American HKO is open!!  Yippeeeeeee!!

GO PLAY

I personally cannot wait to see what changes and improvements have been made.  Did Aeria answer the call when thousands of users asked for the economy to be rebalanced??

…I won’t be able to check until I get home from work. D8

I hear this Facebook place is pretty popular nowadays.

So I was using the Pieces of Flair app and searched for Hello Kitty Online and there were NO RESULTS.    So I used the “Create” feature and put a few different ones together. 

Add this Flair to your collection: ~Click~

~Click~

~Click~

~Click~

…And after that I just… kept making Flair.   All of these images are from SanrioTown’s monthly Downloadables.  I kind of… collect them. 

~Click~

~Click~

~Click~

~Click~

~Click~

~Click~

~Click~

~Click~

Free for everyone to use and enjoy!  Send ‘em to your Facebook buddies or keep them all for yourself.

Hey everyone!  Thanks bunches for your kind comments about my hats!  Once again I find myself pining for a ‘reply’ feature for our comments here at SanrioTown…

In other news, hurray for October downloads!  It took a while this month, huh? 

Anyway, adore the Little Twin Stars header:

In fact, I made avatar art to match it to throw in my post style for Gaia Online!

   Fave on DeviantArt // SheezyArt

Also, WORD ON THE STREET is that the GMs over at Aeria are testing out HKO events for Hello Kitty’s birthday.  You know what that means??  We are probably getting open beta by November 1st!!  *crosses fingers*

Check out these hats I made!  They are both made from white fleece and pink flannel.

Hello Kitty hat!!  Fave on DeviantArt // SheezyArt (follow links for more photos)

Bunny hat!!  Fave on DeviantArt // Sheezy art (follow links for more photos)

First of all, I just looked at my pageview counter, and wow!!  Over 10,000 views!  Thanks so much, everybody.  I appreciate every single comment I get.  ilu all <3

Still waiting for my October downloads. D:  I’ve had a Scribblenauts wallpaper for a while and need something adorable to replace it with.  *bounces in seat in anticipation*

Besides that, I just read about how our accumulated Kitty Points are being converted into Sanrio Loyalty Points.  Well, it’s not so much as a conversion as a “we’re changing the mode of currency, so we’re going to take everything you’ve accumulated so far with no compensation.”  It’s just a little irksome, that’s all I think…  I was under the impression that our Kitty Points were going to be used for the in-game cash shop once HKO opened up, but now they’ve changed the system and everything we’ve earned until now is gone.

I meandered through a few blogs and sent an e-mail to what I hope are existing e-mail addresses of SanrioTown developers, saying this:

~~~~~~~~

Greetings, SanrioTown News administrators.

Just read this news post, and felt the need to express my concerns.  Okay, I would like to start off by saying that this is a good change because it sounds like now we will actually be able to use our points for something.  The big issue here is the lack of conversion from our existing points to the new ones.

First off, the 250 points for signing up.  Existing accounts were not granted this (today I logged in and found that I had only 8 Loyalty Points).

Secondly, and this is the main issue: There are members that have been here for over a year and contributed to the SanrioTown community many forum posts, blog entries, and videos, and these efforts have gone completely unrewarded in this new system.  I understand that the system is new and perhaps the kinks are still being ironed out, and such a mass giveaway of Loyalty Points would take a great deal of programming time and effort - but consider the other side of the stick: a great deal of time and effort on our part went towards creating our blogs and videos to share with this community that we love.  True, we do it out of love, and of spreading of good cheer, and of bringing smiles to others’ faces, and all of that sunshine - but it would be nice if our contributions to the community before the switch were acknowledged instead of ignored.

Please consider this, SanrioTown Developers.  You have on your hands a community of people who adore you and want to be a part of the SanrioTown experience - and have been a part of it for more than a year.  We are Sanrio Loyalty.  So where are our Loyalty Points?

Sincerely, Bridget G. (a.k.a. BunnyWinx)

  ~~~~~~~~

My hope is that the lack of point conversion was just an oversight, and one that will be fixed soon.  If you find yourself troubled by the change as well, then do NOT hesitate to let the development team know.

My messages were sent to kitty_news@hellokitty.com and marketing@hellokitty.com, but if any of you know of another address I can send this along to, please let me know in a comment.  I would really appreciate for my words to find their way into the hands of a site administrator.

Guess so!  I feel like I didn’t post enough last month.  :c

Hm, well, there still isn’t much to share.  HKO is still closed, but now we know what kinds of rewards we’ll be getting when it opens up again.

I forget if I mentioned this in a previous post or not - but I’ve started sewing stuffed animals and plushies.  I enjoy it very much. :3  Today I made space in my room for a sweet little sewing machine that was handed down to me by a woman I work with, and a sewing table from my dad that has a lot of little drawers and trays for storage of little notions and things (something I need very badly, because up until now all of my supplies have been laid out on my bedroom floor).

So, it feels like everything is coming together.  I even bought a few patterns online, for making cute dresses for 18″ dolls (like American Girl dolls).  I’ll try my hand at those for fun, and also making soft dolls and bunnies that are the right size to wear the same dresses.

AND THEN THEY’LL ALL HAVE A TEA PARTY

It’ll be great.