So I would like to this in 2 separate blog posts. One for the first part of the happy hearts reunion and one for the second (the extension/ charity event).

In this first part, I want to talk about testing the new farming system, which was one of the main reasons for this beta test/event.

For those of you who didn’t get to play with us in this beta, the farming system was revamped a bit.  They made it so that we could purchase new farm deeds and with each more expensive deed, a new farm level. With each seed level corresponding to which farm you could grow on. For instance If I buy a level 2 farm, I can’t grow level 3 seeds, but I can grow level 1 and level 2  seeds. I can’t recall all of the farm choices (each level of farm has a few different layout options)  or seed levels. Those of you played in closed beta will remember some of the farm choices we had then,  it’s the same sort of thing.

Another one of the major changes to the farm system was the fact that others, even people outside of you guild, could now help fertilize, water ( a new feature) and harvest your ripe crops. Others may not help you plant or destroy old crops. All the things harvested by your farm slaves helpers will go directly to the farm owners inventory. I really liked this new feature and found it very useful, especially since they took away our pause button. Yes that’s right. We could no longer pause our farms to harvest and the growth/ripening/death rate was extremely accelerated to correspond to a “day meter”. Now your crops are governed by a visible bar in the upper right hand corner of your screen that cycles through the day times on your farm.  Towards the latter part of the beta, they added a huge disturbing sun graphic that would pop up and disable your mouse commands on the screen when it became a new day on your farm. I seriously hope they hear the outcry of the in game farming community and please please make the bad sun go away xD

They also made it so that each time the farm owner leaves, everyone will be booted out of the farm. This includes instances where the farm owner accidentally goes into her house while harvesting crops. Yes it did happen to me xD and it wouldn’t be so bad if people didn’t have to ask and wait for permission from the farm owners to enter farms now.

I hope I have done a well enough job outlining the new farming changes here (maybe not very objectively) and please feel free to add anything I have forgotten, as well as let me know how you guys feel about all the new features. Overall, I think a lot of the changes were a positive step in right direction, and I can see that they have a lot of potential to them.  Especially if Starrfire is on your farm and she is excited to tell you what to do help you harvest your crops and try out the new farming system xD  (see screen shot for example)

Another bit they changed back to the way things were in CB was the pet cards. Each creature now drops a card that you may collect and add to your beat encyclopedia, and you may use the cards to equip the creatures as pets. I was really happy about this, because in CB I had a bee for a pet, and I was able to so again. However all the pets still talk and it can be a bit annoying how frequently they talk. They do say some pretty amusing things though.

They also seem to get hungry really often! Hopefully there will be another type of food in the next beta that will keep them full for longer.  Again, if I have forgotten any change in this beta that anyone would like to add, please feel free to do so in the comments below. I will work on that second half blog post as soon as possible!

Just in case you haven’t heard yet, we will all be able to play together again in just a couple of days!

“From February 12-17, 2009, HKO will host Happy Hearts, an exclusive Founders-only event in which players can get together once more with their friends, take on exciting new quests, and be first to experience some major enhancements to the game!”

Also, “HKO will open its doors to Founders on February 12, 2009 at 22:00 EST, and the rest of Sanriotown can join the fun on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2009 at 20:00 EST.”

How exciting! We will be able to meet new friends and play in game with them as well!  Unfortunately, it won’t work for european non-founders

Just a note on the designer depot:

ripplecloud is making a poll in the Sailoria forum so that we can all vote on the design that we want to submit for designer depot. Everyone make sure to check that out when she puts it up

If you have a design that you would like to submit for consideration , please email it to me or ripplecloud, or feel free to post it here and I will make sure she gets it.

Idea for the guild uniform:

Or we may change it to a top hat. That seemed to be a very popular idea last night. I wish you guys had been on in the morning when we were trying to sort this all out  >_<

The shirt:

I sort of liked the tie like that, let me know what you think!

Thanks so much to SolidierX for typing these up for us. This is a list of all the items you need for the various Christmas quests we are doing right now in HKO. Remember they may seem a bit overwhelming, but if we work together, we can all get them done!

 What you need for the Xmas quests:

Collection quest
-5 Mistletoe
-5 Candy Cane
-5 Xmas Stars

Xmas Smörgåsbord
-25 Eggnog
*140 eggs
*70 Milk
*35 magic spice

-30 Xmas Ham
*75 fresh meat
*120 valuable honey

-30 Fruitcake
*18 Flour
*18 milk
*30 magic spice
*60 Strawberry cake
+180 strawberries
+60 Flour
+60 Milk
+60 Eggs
*60 Lemon Pie
+120 lemons
+40 oat bisquits
*60 Flour
*120 oats
*20 milk
*20 eggs

Broken Bell
-20 Iron ore
-10 copper
-5 yellow dye

Santa’s Rippped Pants
-5 Red dye
*45 sorosis
*35 strawberies
*10 water
*30 clay

-1 zipper
*4 Slick stones
+4 gravel
+4 water
*1 copper ring
+2 clay
+2 copper

-10 cotton (from the wind bell trees)

Snowball fight
-100 Snowballs
*1250 Snow
*250 water

Santa’s Reins
-4 leather straps
-5 zippers
*20 Slick stones
+20 gravel
+20 water
*4 copper ring
+8 clay
+8 copper
-10 Copper ring
*20 clay
*20 copper

—-Totals—-
5 misltetoe
5 candy canes
5 Xmas stars

220 eggs
138 flour
168 milk
65 Magic spices
215 strawberries
75 fresh meat
120 valuable honey
120 lemons
120 oats
20 Iron ore
30 copper
5 yellow dye
45 sorosis
264 water
60 clay
4 gravel
40 cotton
1250 snow

So you guys remember that email/poll that ripplecloud did, asking you guys about how you came to join the guild? Well she has compiled a list of your answers for us, she is so awesome!

Also, you will be happy to know that you can finally read the interview that Ginger, ripple and I did in it’s entirety right here! You can also read the interviews from the other winning guilds there as well.

Please click the read more link for your answers on how you came to join the guild

Read more »

I need to start this blog post off with an apology. I am sorry that I haven’t been as good about updating this blog as I should be. Sorry guys!

Ok, now that that is done, I have a few a things I would like to keep the guild updated on. First of all, congratulations to everyone on the amazing entries for the contests and to the winners!

Secondly, I just want to let everyone know that I am making blog buttons for everyone to go one the blog roll and I will be using ripplecloud’s master blog list as reference. So if you have a blog that you want included, please make sure you let her know! She has also set up a really cool tool for us to use, to check when members have updated their blogs. Find it here!

Third, and this is very important! Please join us in Hello Kitty Online once again on December 17th! They will be letting us in the game to frolic and be merry with all our of friends for the holidays! How awesome!! So please don’t uninstall your game client, or you will have to download and install it again in order to join in he fun.

And in closing, I want to say thank you to everyone who worked so hard in our guild in the Food for Friends event. We raised a lot of money for charity and it all went to a great cause. I am so proud of you guys! In fact, I am so touched that I thought I should do something a little special for you guys. So I am going to post a snippet from our guild interview for you guys before it is published! Wow you guys are special! To see it, please read on…. Read more »

What better place to start than where we left off? Ripplecloud has posted the most amazing story ever right here in her blog. Be sure to check it out!  You may also want to go back and read How did we get so big? A great story of fantastic friendship and people coming together to help each other!

Lastly, please be sure to check out the new post in the hello kitty online blog. There you will find instructions for downloading a client which you will use to be able to play founders beta. I am so very excited and I hope to see you all in game!

I got an email this morning from HKO regarding the founder’s beta! It will begin October 8, 2008! I am so excited!! To get in on this, you simply have to sign up on SanrioTown (www.SanrioTown.com) and use the SanrioTown email system to send a blank message to hkofounder@hellokitty.com.  If you want more info, check here, at the hello kitty online blog

http://blog.sanriotown.com/onlinegame:hellokitty.com

Oh you guys I am so excited!!

In case you guys missed it, we are playing a fun little game in the guild forum, why don’t you check it out!

To getting to see what the new and improved HKO is like! Thanks to GM Neverender and his willingness to risk it all for us, we can see a few awesome screenshots from HKO! I am sure glad, because it looks SO COOL!

The wonderful ripplecloud has put together a great list of quick links for us in her blog. Thanks so much ripplecloud!

I changed the look of the blog to the new hello kitty online blog style! I think it was very fitting for us Be sure to check out the cool new blog styles for your own blog!

As always, feel free to email me with questions, or come hang out with us in the forums! It’s a great place to introduce yourself, and make some new friends, as well as keep in touch with old friends.

So those of you who join us on the message board probably already know this, but not everyone checks the guild forum, so I will post this here:

“Hi there! Just re-posting the interview with Ali Aslanbaigi, GM Supervisor for Hello Kitty Online:

MMOsite: Is there any sort of rough schedule for when open beta and commercial launch will be available for players? Will there be a character wipe at the end of the beta test?

Ali Aslanbaigi: For both Europe and North America,we plan to have another Closed Beta for Q3 2008. After that,Open Beta will grace both continents during Q4 and commercial launch will be somewhere around the end of Q4 and the beginning of Q1 of 2009. As for the English speaking Asian regions,Open Beta will begin in 2009 and the commercial launch will follow very,very soon after.  Lots and lots of work to be done until then,but for now,just keep your web eyes peeled.

You won’t be able to play the game since Hello Kitty Online is still unavailable or down. Please wait for our official announcement on the exact schedules and availability of the game’s installer. Thanks and I hope this clears everything up.”

Thank you Tom for putting that up there for us!

Another note, a lot of people ask similar questions on the forum about the guild, and how to join, so I thought I would make a place that we can link to in order for them to have a good answer. Please refer all questions by new people who ask about joining the guild to this post! The text below should be of some help.

“Welcome to the guild for all who are interested in joining! To join the guild, you don’t have to have played closed beta, you can just hang out with us here and on the blog, and then meet up with us in game in the next closed or open beta (we aren’t sure yet which one they are letting us into next yet) to join it “officially”. Remember you can always quit the guild you are in and join a new one if you find that one does not suit you.
The purpose of the guilds in hello kitty online are to promote friendship, help each other with projects (such as house building), and to be able to use the guild chat feature and many other reasons. In our guild we have mini games and projects just for us in game! Remember that we are also great friends with people from the other guilds, and we help each other out whenever we can.
If you would like your new guild friends to visit your blog, or be able to email you, please leave your email/blog address in a comment to me, either here or on the blog.  My email address is sailoriastar@hellokitty.com. Please feel free to email at any time with questions or concerns that you may have! ”