The community has spoken! In the current poll on the gaming community TenTonHamster, users are asked to vote on the question “Which Game are You Most Looking Forward to Coming Out in 2008?” Among 4 other games, Hello Kitty Online stands out with a whopping 54% of votes!

If you haven’t cast your vote, the poll is still up for more! Thank you once again to our supporters and fans, and we look forward to living up to the hype when Open Beta comes!

TenTonHamster, a popular gaming community aimed at younger players, has a few exclusive Hello Kitty Online articles that we’re sure many of you will be interested in. First off, we have an exclusive preview from LadyLotus of her experience during the Closed Beta, which you can read by clicking this link.

Aside from that, TenTonHamster was also the first to release an exclusive interview with our Managing Game Master, the first part of which you can read by clicking this link. If you haven’t already read it, we are sure you’ll find it interesting and informative, and it may even answer some of your own questions. Enjoy!

It’s inevitable! The hype for Hello Kitty Online extends beyond SanrioTown, as the game earns a hype level of 7.08 out of 10 on the hugely popular game community MMORPG.com.

Just like HKO’s high rating on Duowan, this just goes to show that even prior to its release, Hello Kitty Online is proving to be a force in the gaming world. Thank you to everyone who supported and continues to support Hello Kitty Online!

Hello Kitty Online is once again featured on MMOSite, this time in the form of an interview with Managing Game Master Ali Aslanbaigi. The interview gives players and readers another inside look into the gameplay and goals of HKO, especially for Open Beta.

Here’s a little excerpt from that:

Our first closed beta ended on June 1,2008 and had around 3,000 participants. I have to say, we have the best player base in the world. They gave us great advice on how to improve the game and ways to make it feel a lot more “complete”.

The interview was done for the recent Chinajoy 2008, the Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference in China. You’ll read about the past Closed Beta and get more information per region on our target schedules. You can check that out by clicking this link!

The HKO Trailer Contest has ended and the winners have been announced! Thank you so much to all who have participated! More contests will be coming your way soon, so make sure you sign up for a SanrioTown Account to receive our newsletter for more exciting events and contests!

And our Grand Prize winner is: RippleCloud! Click this link to see her video, and don’t forget to congratulate her!

Congratulations to all our winners! You may view the full list in the Director’s Club Blog!

Technorati tags: hello kitty online, hko, hkocontest, trailer, winners

Just a little treat for all our HKO fans, especially those who love XO! Now aside from showing Badtz-Maru, there’s also one particular monster shown there that will be in HKO also as a pet! Check that out in the video, and while you’re at it you can leave a comment on it through Dream Studio.

Technorati tags: hello kitty online, teaser, xo, badtzmaru, hko, mmorpg

Aside from the Sanrio Characters and technical aspects of the game, there is one concept that we have been promoting as one of the game’s strongest points — the community aspect. Although we’ve seen a lot of it here and there in the game, during the latter part of the Closed Beta, something great happened in Hello Kitty Online.

The Sailor Scouts Guild had been up for a while in Closed Beta, but during those last parts, this guild showed us exactly the kind of community that we were going for in the game. The guild of 12 rose to a mighty 40 in a day. But it wasn’t for fame or popularity, it was for the sake of helping others.

You can read the story of how they got so big, and why that event was so great, by visiting the guild blog maintained by sailoriastar. Don’t forget to drop them a note!

Three cheers for the Sailor Scouts Guild, and we look forward to seeing you all in Open Beta!

SanrioTown is home to a lot of really skilled gamers. If you check out our flash game center, you’ll see some crazy high scores! Our CB testers got a taste of the mingames in HKO, which was one of the ways our players got to show their competitive side. While we got some good feedback for them, those were just a taste of what’s to come! Having said that, we’d like to give you another sneak peek by showing you some added titles to our minigames!

Click on the image to see it full size. You have Hello Kitty, Keroppi, My Melody and Cinnamoroll. Many of these games are not easy folks, so whether you’re just looking for a fun pastime or you’re really out for a challenge, they’ll surely do the trick for you.

Can you guess how those games will be played from the titles and images alone? And take note, there will be a lot more than the ones in those images. Stay tuned!

Great news! Hello Kitty Online received an excellent review from players on duowan.com! Duowan is a well-known game site based in China, and it’s a popular place for gamers to get together and talk about games. In the site, HKO earned 2,222 votes from Duowan members, and what’s more, it got a rating of 3.5 out of 4 stars!

Source: duowan.com

So now we’d like to take this time to thank, in particular, those from Duowan who showed their support for Hello Kitty Online. For all our Closed Beta testers, thank you for your continued support, feedback, and for sending us your thoughts even until now, so we can work together to develop the best gaming experience for everyone!

Technorati Tags: duowan, game, online game, hello kitty online, hello kitty

For all those who have been wondering, “Hompy” is the term we use for the interior of the house. The Hompy System, as our Closed Beta testers have experienced, is the system that allows you to decorate the interior of your house. As many of you have seen through CB screenshots, there weren’t a lot of furniture yet, so now we bring you a preview of what your HKO house could look like in the future!

Click the image to see it full-size. We are proud to announce that in our future versions, we will have hundreds of different hompy items, many of which you can interact with in-game! You will be able to customize your house to make it uniquely yours, and when you’re done, invite some friends over to chat, or even share farming tips maybe.

Hope you liked this little preview. More to come soon, so stay tuned!