I have a lot of experience with MMOs in various forms, however I feel it was a welcome experience to be a part of a more social-based MMO that Hello Kitty Online is. It’s not fully based on how high of a level you are or what equips you have (although there was some drama that is not uncommon for MMOs.) I made some good friends and have good memories of the game in general, however, I’m choosing not to use that as the focus in this entry.

As Hello Kitty Online will be released in an Open Beta hopefully within the next month and after that a final full release to the public, a lot of lessons need to be learned from the Founder’s Beta to make improve the game so everyone can enjoy it equally. A lot of the lessons can be forgiven due to the game’s status as a beta and that the sheer extent of these issues couldn’t be addressed at the time. For this entry, my primary goal is to focus on two things that  I felt were the games weaker points, that being the interface and the events.

First diving into HKO, it was amazing to see a good deal of Sanrio characters that I never heard of beyond a few that have been more mainstream over the years. Not having that background kept me lost of the nostalgia that they would provide, as the game provides no background lore about them (meaning you have to do the research yourself.)

As someone who does have background in MMOs, entering the world of HKO was awkward that the controls were too simple for me and the restrictiveness of the user interface led to a bit of frustration. For an MMO that will eventually cater to both younger members as well as older Sanrio fans, I would think that a choice of a “basic” and an “advanced” interface would improve a lot of the awkwardness. An advanced interface would allow more customization such as keyboard commands, window management among other features.

The quest interface, especially with the long chains of related quests you had to go through, wasn’t user friendly. In order to find what quest to do next, sometimes it required hours of travel (solely at a slow pace walking through multiple maps) through all the NPCs to figure out what I missed. I would suggest in these cases that having a “pending quests” list within that window that allows you to see where you possibly missed a step and all the quests available no matter where you are.

For a good deal of the first week, most of the game within the London area was either mistranslated or not translated at all from a Chinese version which led a lot of confusion and relying on other player’s translations as reference. It shows that the game was not prepared for the influx that would access London at the time before it was properly patched with translations.

A lot of the GM run events such as the “Hello Kitty’s Birthday” and the “Food for Thought” events ended with a lot of drama that I felt were not completely  addressed by the GMs. It’s unfortunate first of all that all the major events that the Founders’ Beta promised seemed squished into the last week of the beta when it could have been spread out to be more enjoyable for everyone during the month that it ran for.

In the case of the “Hello Kitty’s Birthday” event, it was touted as one big event held twice with no exceptions to that fact. When it came to the second time the event was held, a lot of people missed it due to a change in Daylight Savings Time that Sunday that was not recognized by the staff. During the first time the event ran, I felt the whole event was in a mess seeing in a way the GMs seemed not prepared for an influx of people entering and exiting the areas where the event was supposedly held. Having an event such as this at more reasonable times (and likely in some cases multiple times so everyone can participate no matter where in the world they are) would allow every one to have fun as the event is supposed to provide.

Guild events need a lot of retooling and further thinking through in order to be fair to everyone involved. Especially the ones with fame and fortune are concerned, I felt as if there was too much of an advantage for the bigger guilds to win it all than some of the guilds with not even a fraction of their size. It would be fair to all guilds if future contests were divided into different brackets based on the number of members. In the spirit of friendship and Hello Kitty, everyone should have an equal chance instead of having doubts that for sure someone is going to win everything due to the fact that they have a bigger group to collaborate with.

I don’t mean to overstep beyond my boundaries as only a player of this game, but this another way the game can be reflected from a players point of view. I would love to see my thoughts taken into consideration without feeling I’m bothering the GMs with my various e-mails of nitpicks in regard to the game and its functions. Hello Kitty Online has its potential given the fact that it revolves around a big name and a game I want to continue playing, but if these flaws continue the game may not ideally last as it is made out to be.