Flutterby™! : Kingdom of Loathing 2004-09-15 17:11:51.659593+00

Kingdom of Loathing

2004-09-15 17:11:51.659593+00 by Dan Lyke 13 comments

Along with the catching up with probably a solid year of "what's been happening?" and serious discussions about low friction versus high friction economics, at yesterday's lunch Todd and I also reminisced about some of our game ideas and notions. I forget where I first heard of it, but it's time to point out Kingdom of Loathing. In what other online game can you wield a homoerotic frat paddle? Or combine two 334 scrolls and a 30669 scroll to get a 31337 scroll, which summons the UB3r 31337 HaX0R? Or lay some smackdown on furries, hippies and yetis, and the protagonist:

...a 12-year-old boy who has somehow become one of the most powerful warriors in the world. He's on a quest to both save the world and somehow redeem himself from a past he doesn't remember....

To be fair, while the notion was cute I lost interest because the interface is way too slow and takes up way too much time to keep up with.

You might have heard about it from me: I have been playing KoL since early May. I am a level 18 Sauceror, and I could cast a few nifty Elemental Saucespheres on ya if you need 'em for stench damage (if you equip an ass hat, you get the same protection). Right now, I have solved most of the quests and am now working on fattening up my familiars in battles with "the house familiars" in The Cake-Shaped Arena, lusting after the 300 Pound Trophy. The Icy Peak used to be the best place to adventure, in terms of accumulating meat (KoL currency), until the Penguin Mafia started showing up and emaciating the Knott Yetis that lived there. I did manage recently to get in to the Spectral Pickle Factory, which only appears once a month, and I now have a Ghost Pickle on a Stick familiar: a valuable rare item!

I love KoL: the sense of humor and cleverness and goofiness is right up my alley. I agree the server slowness is a drag: this is another "we're doing it out of our own pocket" project. (Send them $10 as a contribution and get a Mr. Accessory!) They want to keep it free, but that ends up implying sluggishness. As a tradeoff to selling out, it might be endurable.

I'm there every night, using up my 48 daily 'adventures' (my clan has a meat tree that gives me extra, as does my Clockwork Maid, installed in my campground, and the Dead Guy's Watch which I equip for each roll-over). My character name is d_ER: drop me a message and I'll send you a few Hell Ramen or girly drinks to pump up your stats. (Just don't smash your Hippy Stone and go into Player vs Player combat too soon!)

What clan are you in? I'm one of the Ninja Turtles (14th level Accordion Thief). Lemme know if you neeed a Phat Loot buff.

From what I gathered, Jick was able to buy a bunch of new machines and work on this full time from the $10 donations (I went whole hog and got three Mr. A's, and sold one for a couple million meat a few months ago). BoozerBear has been collecting Mr. A's and he had a couple of thousand. At $10 a pop, that's fair chunk of change heading Jick's direction. No idea if it comes close to covering the bandwidth he's burning on this game.

Aha, found you! I'm in clan flickr -- we're actually mostly refugees from GNE (Game Neverending). Any other KoLers out there? Dan, what's your character name? I found a level 2 Accordian Thief named Flutterby, could that be you...?

So Mark, did Jick actually send multiple Mr. A's for a multiple-of-$10 contribution? Sweet! I'm off to send dollars after my addiction.

#Comment Re: made: 2004-09-15 22:43:43.34885+00 by: markd [edit history]

Something I sent Diane, but seems apropos here, is how many folks from other aspects of my life I've run into on KoL. A friend from here introduced me, I discovered another friend (Crazy Erin) who is currently in the Navy studying chinese played the game. She introduced me to the NT clan, where I met a local Pittsburgh person, and the founder of my LUG out here (who has since moved to Seattle) ended up joining the same clan. Now I have a flutterby connection.

My favorite KoL moment, reading the description of the Bejeweled Accordion Strap:

This is an accordion strap with inlaid silver and semi-precious gems. Wantssss it, sort of. Kind of wantssss the semi-precioussss.

Because my use of "straw" in that context predates it by so many years, I'd never made the "Camel book" connection until you mentioned it, Meuon.

I was at the KoL site a few weeks before Dan posted here, but I was confused about the actual gameplay. It sounds like it is, in fact, an MMORPG - is that correct? I wasn't sure if it was some play-by-e-mail thing or something. Is this mostly text-based or graphical?

Mostly text-based, since the graphics are a little on the, simple side. Everyone pretty much adventures in their own little world (meaning you can't directly help each other out getting to the lair of the naughty sorceress), but the inter-user action happens in PvP (which I don't do), the chat room (pretty much windows only), an in-game message system for exchanging goods, regular web mesage boards, and within the clans (I'm on the Ninja Turtles IRC channel and message boards). You can also buff other players (bascially casting spells that give them some benefit.) Being in a clan gives you an extra 500 meat a day (if they have a meat tree), I think some extra adventures, along with a clan stash. If you need a harem veil to complete your knob goblin harem costume, you can usually find one in the stash, borrow it, and return it when you're done.

#Comment Re: Full circle. made: 2004-10-02 17:19:43.011913+00 by: Diane Reese

John Borland of CNet's news.com posted a piece about Kingdom of Loathing this week. He got it right -- but it's obvious to me he's only a Level 3, since he mostly mentions the "early" accessible areas and quests. They get much more amusingly tangy as your character gets more powerful.

He did interview me for this piece, but I wasn't quoted. The guy Phil who is quoted at the beginning is another of the group of Olde Fartes I know of who play (a.k.a. those of us 50 or older who think it rocks, including me).

By the way, I'm working on the last trophy I'll be able to qualify for now (I never chose to break my hippy stone and engage in Player-vs-Player combat, so the trophy involving stealing toast from another player after a PvP win won't ever be accessible to me). This trophy involves drinking a number of Tomato Daiquiris, which one cannot mix onesself: you only receive them randomly when your bartender-in-a-box explodes from having mixed too many cocktails for you. Unfortunately, I've exploded six b-in-a-box so far (and rebuilt them from assembled parts afterwards) and only have ONE LOUSY TOMATO DAIQUIRI to show for it. I have several Papaya Slungs and a Beertini, though. (The bartender goes haywire when it explodes and gives you some spare parts, some actual mixed drinks, and some bizarros.) If anyone has any spare Tomato Daiquiris, I'd trade you some Spaghetti with Skullheads for them....

Oh no wait. I could still protest the slaughter of the Knott Yetis 100 times and get that trophy. Nah, that's boring. What a waste of adventures when I could be exploding bartenders-in-a-box and getting weird mixed drinks. :-D

Thanks, markd. I didn't understand the vehicle for gameplay. I wasn't sure if this was something over e-mail, interactive web page or what. A co-worker has now showed it to me and I agree it looks like fun. My gaming time is currently going to Neverwinter Nights at the moment, however.

There's also a two-page article about KoL in the current (November) issue of GAMES Magazine.

(I've got a Level 9 accordian thief, and no trophies just yet. Will buff for ramen.)