Kingdom of Loathing

Oh, the bees, THE BEES!

There's a new option now called "Bees Hate You" where you have penalties for using any item with a 'b' in its name. Completing a run like this gets you bonus "karma" points, which you can spend on things to make your later ascensions easier.

I got a big long e-mail from KoL last night, written like a love letter entreating me to return. Only for one of my logins, though.

I don't know. It was a well-written letter (as to be expected) but when I left the game had just become a whole lot more complicated with a lot of clan-restricted content (I freaking hate that) and that was about two years ago. Even though that login had more than 25 ascensions on it, I admit I feel a little intimidated.

Also around the time I left I was sick to death of hearing Mr. Skullhead talk about his kid on the podcast - despite repeated promises never to do that - and parrot "wear a condom," which his wife said once and he apparently found hilarious. Jick was a cool guy last I checked, though.

But, um... that "bees" thing is pretty funny. I am fond of bees. You could even say that I like them.

Ah, but the bees aren't fond of you. And by the end of the run you will find yourself noticing every single time you type a word with a "b" in it. I'm still feeling the effects days later.

slambie, level 17 Turtle Tamer applied to the clan today.

It's been almost a decade since I've logged into my KoL account, but it's still there. Woot.

I havent logged in a while , but im agrav8r. Thanks.

Is anyone checking out the new challenge path that went live overnight?

Why, God, why am I back to this.

Oh right, my awesome login name: BobaVette.

If you have an established character, this is a great to time to play since there's a "brushfires" world event going on right now. The caveat is that it has been going for a week, so you'd probably have to play catch-up.

I just had to come on and say that I'm playing this again. I don't know why, but I am.

I remember this game. I remember wearing a asshat. I recall being a seal clubber. I remember the great cola war that split the world. Ah those were the good old days.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

I remember this game. I remember wearing a asshat. I recall being a seal clubber. I remember the great cola war that split the world. Ah those were the good old days.

I've really enjoyed being back it for a little bit. I've never ascended before so that's the next step for me. I also somehow have a hilarious amount of meat and I've got no idea how I have it.

Oh, wow. They finally added an option (at some point) to reset your ascension. That's usually what's kept me from going back. I'm surprised I remembered my password.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Oh, wow. They finally added an option (at some point) to reset your ascension. That's usually what's kept me from going back. I'm surprised I remembered my password.

There's also a mobile version now, which is massively appealing.

I was a Turtle Tamer way back in the day. I also remember this thread being far and away the largest on GWJ when it was active.

Also,

Faceless Joe wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Oh, wow. They finally added an option (at some point) to reset your ascension. That's usually what's kept me from going back. I'm surprised I remembered my password.

There's also a mobile version now, which is massively appealing.

Uh-oh. That may pull me back in...

I got over 50 ascensions and got my complete set of plexiglass armor (breatharian hardcore on all six classes) but burned out on it after they started adding the special ascension paths. I logged in a couple of times to check on the Crimbo event but that was it.

Huh. Just looked and I have two anniversary gifts waiting on me, so it's been at least two years since I checked in on tanstaafl.

Faceless Joe wrote:

I just had to come on and say that I'm playing this again. I don't know why, but I am.

Welcome back! A lot's changed depending on when you last were actively playing. I'm still somewhat active so if you (or anyone else) has questions, I'd be happy to answer them (or ask in the /newbie chat channel)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Oh, wow. They finally added an option (at some point) to reset your ascension. That's usually what's kept me from going back. I'm surprised I remembered my password.

Yeah that was added like a year or two ago I think. It had been requested a lot by the community and I think there was some technical reason they couldn't do it until a couple years ago (or Jick was being stubborn).

tanstaafl wrote:
Faceless Joe wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Oh, wow. They finally added an option (at some point) to reset your ascension. That's usually what's kept me from going back. I'm surprised I remembered my password.

There's also a mobile version now, which is massively appealing.

Uh-oh. That may pull me back in...

I got over 50 ascensions and got my complete set of plexiglass armor (breatharian hardcore on all six classes) but burned out on it after they started adding the special ascension paths. I logged in a couple of times to check on the Crimbo event but that was it.

*internet high-five for suffering through 6 oxygenarian ascensions too*

FYI, the mobile version is still in beta I think, but it's a decent attempt at making the game mobile friendly and it's definitely more suited to phones than tablets. It's still a web page so don't go expecting native performance.

As for the special challenge paths... They are apparently slowing down on the release cycle for these and I think they're dropping either the fall or winter slot simply I believe because it's more work than they want to deal with at that time of year. They also added rewards to the new "Normal" path which is a normal ascension but limits you to only using IotMs released in the last 2-3 years, so that might be a bit more to your liking depending on why you burned out on the special ascension paths.

shoptroll wrote:

*internet high-five for suffering through 6 oxygenarian ascensions too*

14 HCO ascensions here. I havent played KoL in about 4 years. Took a look at the ascension database and was happy to see some of my speedy hardcore runs are still in the 98th 99th percentile.

I've popped back on to the forums once in a while and it's seems it's still the same sh*tshow that it was back then. Loved that game but couldn't stay with that community. Also it seems the devs (if at all possible) keep growing more and more resentful of their game/community year over year.

Tyops wrote:

I've popped back on to the forums once in a while and it's seems it's still the same sh*tshow that it was back then.

(full disclosure: I'm a forum mod there) We've been trying to get things under control in Gameplay-Discussion lately. Things kinda hit a fever pitch last year and has kinda settled back into a better groove to some degree. Feel free to PM if you want to talk about the forums some more. For what it's worth, the forums sections outside of G-D are a lot more friendly, but that's generally not what people go there for unfortunately.

Also it seems the devs (if at all possible) keep growing more and more resentful of their game/community year over year.

There's a lot of factors at work with the dev-community relations right now. I don't have the fullest picture so this is all conjecture on my part, but I think there's some strain right now due to the fact that the game has stabilized at somewhere around 300-600 active users at any given time as compared to 1000 maybe about 6-7 years ago. They've lost a good deal of players just due to general churn that comes with a long-running game but also the fact that there's a lot more options out there for F2P games (MOBAs, digital CCGs, MMOs, FPSes). So player retention has been really tough. I think last year the game was name-dropped on Reddit and picked up 30k new accounts in a single day, but it doesn't seem like many of those accounts came back for more than 24-48 hours. (Which is really a shame because in terms of gameplay I think the game is a lot better shape than it was even 3-4 years ago. The class and skill revamps in particular have improved things dramatically.)

This has pretty much guaranteed that a lot of the players who are playing are the really old, crusty, and cynical ones who have a lot of toys. This unfortunately causes certain segments of the community (which are very vocal) to butt heads with the developers when the devs try and make changes to the game (and business model to some extent) that, in theory, should make it easier for new players to get up and running since this usually comes at the expense (perceived or actual) of established players. This leads to some unpleasantness which I think hits the devs a bit harder due to their history with the community.

There's also been some non-KoL things I think which haven't really made the devs happy either. Their second game, Word Realms, was late by about 3 years, had a Kickstarter that while successful was not the blow-out they were hoping for, got barely any press, and I don't think sold terribly given that they didn't support it for more than a few months nor has the sub-forum for it had very little traffic. There was also a licensed board game (another Kickstarter) which turned into a bit of a kerfluffle due to the designer being incredibly late in shipping rewards (most of the heat for that was aimed at the KoL people), being generally incommunicative, and while most people eventually got a game, the designer's company folded after scamming another project and have since skipped town I believe.

Yes I had assumed you were the same shoptroll.

Those are some fascinating insights.

I had gotten the sense based on the communication back then, that Word Realms was their "escape plan". The way the game looked though that never seemed realistic to me. I am sorry that it didnt pan out for them. Didnt know about the board game though.

I really enjoyed KoL for quite a while and it played it pretty continuously through grad school. Just the right amount of day-to-day gameplay to manage. That being said the way you describe the community now is how it felt to me back then, so... You must be some kind of saint being a mod on there.

I used to play KoL back in highschool and a bit in college. I actually just started up a new character because the site isn't blocked at work and it's the perfect lunch time distraction. The writing is still witty and interesting. I get excited any time I see new content that didn't exist back when I played.

I'll just leave this here...

But that's not coming out forever!

Well, I was going to just start over from scratch with a new character. Then I remembered my old characters log in info. I'm still playing on the new guy because I like his name, but I figured I could take some items/meat from my old account.

Now I've got ~16M meat. I'm trying to decide what items to buy to get my new character up and running as quick as possible. Anyone have any suggestions on old monthly items or something else worth buying?

Skiptron wrote:

Well, I was going to just start over from scratch with a new character. Then I remembered my old characters log in info. I'm still playing on the new guy because I like his name, but I figured I could take some items/meat from my old account.

Yeah don't do this. I believe Mr. Store items are a-ok to transfer between accounts, but regular items/meat will get you flagged for "multi-abuse" and one of your accounts will likely end up getting banned depending on the severity of the abuse. I don't remember if they have a way to merge accounts but it might not hurt to kmail CustomerService about it.

Now I've got ~16M meat. I'm trying to decide what items to buy to get my new character up and running as quick as possible. Anyone have any suggestions on old monthly items or something else worth buying?

I haven't really actively played in the last 6-8 months so I'm not at all up to date on what's good in the meta right now (or how much things are worth). But here's some things I vaguely remember coming up when this has been asked in the past on the official forums:

  • The Winter Garden is really useful although this is the last year it'll be allowed for most run so you'll get less bang for your buck.
  • Chateau Mategna is a solid "quality of life" and a source of free stat points which is also nice.
  • All 5 airline charters (ie. Spring Break Beach) I think are useful but if you're not playing in hardcore mode you can just buy one-day tickets in the mall and stock them in Hagnk's to pull later.

well, that's a bummer. I guess I could start over again with the old guy, he's got some of the IoTM familiars and such.

Like I said, try contacting customer service to see if they can can consolidate the accounts. I think that's something they've done for people who get caught abusing multis but i'm not 100% sure. Your situation isn't all that uncommon I think.

West of Loathing now has a release window of August and a new trailer!

I'm pretty stoked for WoL. Anything that gives me more of their jokes is OK by me. It'll also finally free them up to work on other things.

Skiptron wrote:

I'm pretty stoked for WoL. Anything that gives me more of their jokes is OK by me. It'll also finally free them up to work on other things.

I really really hope the mythical Level 12 quest revamp is one of them. That's the one part of KoL that increasingly feels out of place now that all the other quests have been updated.