Once I learned that the Founder’s Reunion was going to be all about Christmas I knew I wanted to get presents for people. Then it hit me, why not arrange an in-game Secret Santa? My brain usually goes to the extreme and I was originally going to open it up to the whole Sanriotown forum. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my guild, but I also like interacting with new people. I thought something across guilds (and involving the guildless) would be fun. However, when I started mapping out how to go about this I started considering time zones and varying schedules and realized if I opened it up to everyone I could easily get in over my head.

So instead it became Super Cute Secret Santa.

 ”Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas!”

I was a little embarassed after I posted the idea. What in-game presents could people possibly need? As lame as I felt my idea would be in practice, 7 people expressed interest and excitement. This in turn got me excited and I felt a whole lot better!

To put it together I had everyone that was interested email me. Then I wrote down names and did a random drawing. I emailed my guildmates with the name of the person for whom they would be Secret Santa. Next, everyone posted their wishlists in the forum. The most sought after items were those for the Christmas quests. People also listed seeds or things they collect. No one was looking for anything outrageous and I was truly grateful that all involved were in it for fun. 

I kept tabs on everyone to make sure things were running smoothly. I think there were only 2 problems. The first one was easy enough. I emailed 2 people through forum email and at least 1 of them didn’t receive my email. However, it was a small problem and took little time to fix.

I discovered the second problem during the random name drawing. If someone were going to be my Secret Santa it wouldn’t be a secret. It was with a heavy heart that I realized I wasn’t going to be able to participate. Halfway through the reunion I voiced my sadness to Sugar chan and Astroasis. Both encouraged me to make a wish list and post it on the forums, so I did.

I asked for:

Christmas Stars, Mistletoe and Candy Canes because they were so cute.

Snow because we needed so much!

and snowman seeds because I <3 the snowmen. Hopefully I’ll still have my seeds when OB starts!!

Once again, my guildmates proved themselves to be the most awesome people in the world!

 Well, one day Astroasis shows up on my farm bringing tons of snow, 20! snowman seeds, lemons, oats, strawberries (and probably some other things I’ve forgotten). I was floored! Throughout the reunion she gave me at least 500 snow. It was amazing! I am so happy Astro decided to join Super Cute! (and not just cause she gives me stuff!) She is super hilarious and definitely a good friend. She’s been there for my venting when dealing with one thing or another. ^__^ Astro: You were the best Secret Santa ever!

Petal also showed up bringing Christmas items from the monster drops. (stars and canes and mistletoes) I was shocked and so happy! Pheona gave me 100 lemons which I split with Kimberly and Kimberly gave me the bee stingers guide. I know the bee stinger wand is low level, but I want to know how to make everything! ^__^ I’m pretty sure other people helped me out too, I need to write these things down.

So, a very special thank you to Sugar chan, Astroasis, SaigeMorrow, Alesana_Kitty, Petal, Kimberly and Kireu for making the Super Cute Secret Santa a great event and super fun time! You guys are awesome!

It’s no secret that we needed a lot of snow during the Christmas reunion. I thought the snowmen were hilarious and secretly desired to plant them all over my farm. However, I’m not a terribly dedicated farmer so I only planted three.  I collected bit by bit and my guildmate, Astroasis, would bring me her leftovers as well. I went to thank her and to my horror discovered this!

She had raised a snowman army and by the looks of it she was recruiting!!!* Emi RUN! I had to get out of there quickly before the snowmen got me too! I raced to Alesana_Kitty’s farm.

As I got closer I could hear chanting. ::you will join you will join:: I became dizzy and lost track of time. When I woke up I had joined Alesana’s snowman army. She was preparing an attack on Astro’s farm. Knowing we were outnumbered, I sneaked away when no one was looking.

Once back I looked at my 3 snowmen and knew there was no way I could defend myself. Sometimes desperate situations call for desperate measures. I had to raise my own army and fast….

 ”Mwahahahahaha….oh. Come on guys. Carl, this is serious!”

 ::ahem:: “Mwahahahaha! My army will crush you!”

Unfortunately my army wasn’t very intimidating. Astro visited while I was afk and played amongst them. Perhaps I wasn’t clear on the definition of “crush them” during training.

*And by raised an army I really mean she selflessly continued to harvest snow once she was done with the quest and gave it to me. Astroasis is the greatest! ^__^

Happy New Year’s Eve everyone! I hope you have had a good 2008 and will have an even better 2009. Thanks to everyone in my guild, you guys are awesome, to everyone that has helped me in game and to those who come and read/comment on this blog! You have all made my 2008 that much better! ^__^ Have a wonderful (and safe!) New Year’s!!!

I hope everyone had a nice holiday. I spent Christmas with my family and got loads of cool presents. ^__^ The one I’ve been using the most is my new Nintendo Ds. (hurray hurray) My students will be excited because I promised to bring it in (if I got it) and show it to them.

 Now on with the tour!

I cashed my paycheck and went off to buy gifts. I couldn’t quite figure what to get everyone, but I did my best!

  Pandaba loved the new skirt I got her. (him? I can never tell!)

 I went to take Badtz his present and accidentally walked in on the dress rehearsal for his new show “Badtz Man Group.” Having heard about my unforgettable performance in “El Fromage” he asked if I would come up and do some improv with him. We had a lot of fun! He asked me to join him in performance once I had finished my quests. Wait? Quests??? What quests????

 ”Oh yeah, there are tons of new quests. To boil it down, you’re going to need 120 Lemons, 120 Oats, 180 Strawberries, 120 Honey (watch out for those stingers), 90 meats, more copper and clay than you can shake a stick at and enough water to flood New York.”

” O__o This is punishment for all the complaints about Burry Balls, isn’t it?”

“Oh and I almost forgot, 1,250 pieces of snow. Merry Christmas!”

::passes out::

“Ummm, excuse me sir. I need 1,250 pieces of snow. Would you mind if I harvested some off of you and your little boy here?”

“Get away from us before I call Mr. Policeman. Quick, run Jimmy run!”

I realized that begging in New York is useless. If I wanted to finish these quests in time, I was going to need more money. A lot more! Going back to my job at the Empire State building wouldn’t be enough, so….

I kidnapped the New York Yankees and held them hostage! Once their ransom had been paid I was able to finish the quests and even do some looking around in the mall! I can’t wait until they have home furnishings in stock!

And what Christmas tour would be complete without a visit to Santa?

 ”Ho, ho ho. Have you been a good girl this year?”

“Yes!”

“Really? That’s not what the Yankees tell me!”

>__<

I hope you enjoyed my tour through New York. I really did enjoy the quests, even if they were punishment! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and had time to spend with your loved ones.

PS: This was just for fun, no Yankees were hurt in the making of this story! ^__^

Merry Christmas everyone! A trip back to Sanrio Land was the perfect way to kickstart my holiday! I had a wonderful time. As usual, I took a lot of pictures but was too focused on the game to post them. Here is my tour of New York City!

 I stopped by the tennis courts to pose with this completely humble tribute to Badtz-maru. It’s good to see he has a level head on his shoulders and doesn’t think too highly of himself. ^__^

I also stopped in to see Pochi.

Oh really? You don’t say. Pochi fancies himself a comedian…a gluttonous comedian.

It was a little chilly outside so I popped into the Metropolitan Museum of Art to warm up. I enjoyed looking at the sculptures. My favorites were “A Panda’s Malaise” and “The Booger Escapes.”

Next up was Grand Central Station.

“One ticket to Beijing please.”

“Sorry m’am, the trains aren’t running today.” 

::sob:: “I’ll never get those feathers to Lily!!”

With my travel plans on hold, I decided to do a little Christmas shopping.

It would appear that all the stores have the same name. That must be confusing for tourists. “Meet me at Badtz-maru. No, the other one, no the pink one. Next to the toy store, arrrg, why are they all named the same!!?!?!”

Man, I wish I had that bike to ride through Sanrio Land!

Finding myself low on funds, I went looking for a job. Luckily they were hiring at the Empire State building. I sold tickets, gave tours and worked the info. desk. Finally I earned enough money for Christmas presents so I quit! People can be really rude when they need information and I was only making minimum wage!

I’m just getting started with New York! To be continued in part 2!

 I am so excited about the Founders’ Reunion! 

 Christmas is my favorite holiday! I love the decorations, the holiday spirit, spending time with my friends and family, time off from work and presents (giving and receiving!!). So you can imagine how happy I am to kick off Christmas by returning to Sanrio Land! I believe my reaction looked something like this:

  haha!! ^__^

I’m most excited that the Founders’ Reunion is going to have a holiday theme! From what I can tell we will be saving Christmas by going on holiday missions, plus the maps are going to be changed and have a Christmas theme to them! Not to mention the opening of New York and finding out where our names will be permanently enshrined.

With this happening it doesn’t look like there will be an Open Beta in December. But I’m hoping they will still have one sometime soon. I miss HKO when it’s gone, but I spend waaaaay too much time playing when it’s around. Hopefully when the game is officially released I’ll be able to manage my time better. In Beta I stay on all the time because I know it won’t be around forever, or at least that’s how I justify it to myself. ^__^

Anyways, here are some things I hope we’ll be seeing at the Founder’s Reunion:

New Clothes

Decorations

and SNOW!

I forgot to warn you about my awesome MS Paint skillz! ^__^ HA!

 In order to get into the Christmas spirit Sugar chan and I will be baking cookies. I have cute Hello Kitty cookie cutters, so if they turn out well I’ll post pictures of our results! I’m also going to see if anyone in my guild wants to do an in-game secret santa. I thought about asking the whole forum, but I would probably get in waaaay over my head. I would love to do something across guilds, but it is probably best to leave big events up to the GM’s!

I will see you all in Sanrio Land soon!  

During Founder’s Beta my farm was my sanctuary. A place to hide when lag got to be too much or if I just wanted to chat. To my surprise it attracted others too. Their arrival remains a mystery but I have documented their presence.

During the New York build I left the game on when I went to sleep so others could continue to build on my farm. This plan backfired during the competition, but oddly enough worked once the contest was over. I went to bed one night while several guildmates worked away on Grand Central Station. When I awoke something was different.

A strange dog named Vincent was guarding the station. I say “strange” because he was not mine. I tried to offer him food, but he would not budge. I went into Londan for a bit and when I came back he was gone. I later found out he belonged to a guildmate who had been working on my house, but she had left hours before. Perhaps there was a strong force keeping Vincent with me.

Then, the last day of FB I was running all over the place helping people with last minute quests, finishing up houses and emptying my inventory. (I feel that last one might have been a mistake on my part >__<)  I made frequent stops to my farm and discovered I wasn’t alone!

BlondeBlueEyes from Sailoria had come to my farm, but was now immobilized! I tried to unfreeze her but nothing worked. Perhaps it was a spell from the Kevs or maybe she was trapped in a time warp. Either way, she figured out how to escape!

It is a strange phenomena indeed and one I will keep a close eye on when the game continues!

In the spirit of giving I would like to talk about the Food For Friends event. It was my favorite event of Founder’s Beta. Hello Kitty Online is my first MMORPG and with my easily addictive personality I rapidly began spending more and more time in the game world. It is totally fun, but afterwards I would feel bad about other things in my life I had neglected. (Which is something I’ll really have to work on when the game is released) But Food For Friends alleviated that guilt. I was playing with a real world goal in mind. Sure there was a lot of farming involved (>__<) but it was for a good cause! I didn’t even mind staying up past midnight to deliver our food….much. (I was dragging the next couple of days, seriously)

Food drop off screen cap courtesy of Sugar chan

 Super Cute donated almost $200 worth of food! I know that’s only a drop in the bucket, but I am proud of everything we accomplished. We knew early on that there wasn’t much chance of us winning. (A guild of 28 against guilds of 150-200?? no way!) We worked on this out of kindness and a wish to do something for others. Everyone, across all guilds (and players that donated indiviually) did amazing work! I am always very excited to share that I was part of something that raised over $12,000 for Unicef and the Asian Youth Orchestra.

Also in the spirit of giving I would like to share a couple of websites where you can donate free food everyday!

At freerice.com you can play games that donate food to the UN World Food program. You can play and donate as much as you want.

Free Kibble and Free Kibble Kat donate pet food to different animal shelters across the US. You can answer 1 question a day at each website.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I am anxiously awaiting Open Beta and with all the christmas game rumors that are circulating I am super excited!

(I know Thanksgiving is over, but this is too cute to pass up!)

I had a tremendous amount of  fun playing Hello Kitty On-line Founder’s Beta. Sure, some things were annoying ::cough::farming::cough:: and the big events were a learning experience for all. But, the overall experience was profoundly enjoyable and I have nothing to complain about except:

THE HAIR!!!!!

I loved the brown hair I started the game with! I was disappointed to see all the buyable hair was in non-natural colors so I decided to keep mine basic. However, after battle with the hedgehogs I discovered blue hair in my inventory. I figured I would try it on, just to see what I looked like. I clicked the blue hair and it appeared on my head, only my brown hair was nowhere to be found! It was gone forever and I was so so sad. I guess some things you just have to learn the hard way.

 Luckily, a guildmate told me that the Lynxs dropped black hair so I went on a stunning spree. I was no longer sad and blue. (Sorry for the pun, sometimes I just can’t help myself!!!)

AND luckier still, amongst the madness that was Hello Kitty’s Birthday Party a GM randomly opened a trade and gave me my dream hair! I forget who it was, but thank you so much!!!

So, my sugesstion for Open Beta and beyond is to please make hair interchangable like clothing!!! I’m hoping new styles and colors will be avaiable in the future and I don’t want to miss out because I’m too scared of losing my old hair! ^__^

I became interested in Hello Kitty Online after my friend Sugar_Chan talked about it non-stop. Everything sounded so cute and it seemed like it would be a fun game to play. I was very cautious because she has dragged me into many websites before (orkut, IMVU anyone?) only for both of us to lose interest. I constantly vow that she will never pull me in again! Luckily, I let my guard down and it turned out to be an amazing experience.

I entered the game and worked very hard. Sugar_chan kept talking about this guild she wanted to form. I knew I had to join. We’ve known each other since the 2nd grade and saying no wasn’t an option. I didn’t have anything against guilds, but I was enjoying the game on my own. HKO is my first MMORPG and I didn’t know what to expect. Sugar worked very hard to earn the $30,000 all by herself and thus formed Super Cute! ^__^

I participated in Guild Chat while I worked on the endless supply of missions. I couldn’t believe some people had completed everything already! I waved hello when I saw people, but I didn’t really understand what being in a guild meant until I needed help with Pochi for the New York event.

Somehow I had gotten it in my head that Pochi would disappear before I finished the quest and my dreams of building New York would be squashed. I was so close, I just needed to make oat biscuits and roasted veggies. However, I had no cooking guides for either of them. I voiced my fears in guild chat, that Pochi would miss out on his succulent feast and I would miss out on the Empire Key. Immediately I had an offer from a guildmate to make these items for me. I asked if there was anything she wanted in return and she said no. Red flags went off in my brain, there had to be a catch. People don’t do things for nothing. I waited to see what string was attached to this favor. I mined coal for the veggies and she did the rest. I thanked her profusely, yet waited for the demand for money or items. It never came. I was thoroughly shocked by her kindness! It then became my mission to pay that kindness forward.

I discovered that most everyone in my guild was just as helpful. The guild events really helped us bond and I am still amazed by how awesome we worked together as a team.

I came into this game expecting to indulge in cuteness, interact with Sanrio characters and relax through gaming. How surprising it was when I realized I had gotten the added bonus of friends. Not only that, but these people I had known for less than a month were what I was going to miss the most.

My favorite moment came at the very end of FB. After the Kevevent I decided to hide in Madame Tussaud’s and spend the last few minutes with Hello Kitty. In guild chat I mentioned  where I was and everyone thought it was very sweet and sentimental. I wanted to ask them to come join me, but I knew people were working hard on last minute stuff. We all talked about what we would miss and said to keep in touch. With about 10 minutes left, Astroasis walked in and sat next to Hello Kitty. I was so happy. She was followed shortly by ~*LeReiNa*~. It was such a touching gesture, moreso than anything I could have imagined when I started playing.

I came into HKO alone,

but did not leave that way. ^__^

So, my guild had spent the whole day gathering building materials, a feverish hour and a half hunting down the mystery materials and had waited on pins and needles while I got the land certificates. Everyone was so excited when I right clicked the certificate and the base structure appeared on my farm. All that was left was to get the materials on there and begin hammering away. Unfortunately the materials did not come with instructions. I got them all in my inventory, right clicked on the building and hit the DROP button thinking it would drop the materials onto the base. A box popped up asking if I was sure. I clicked yes and the entire structure disappeared. I had dropped the building from my farm. >__< Guild chat went crazy. Everyone was running to the now vacant lot and wondering what had happened. In the meantime, my heart had jumped out of my chest and was flopping around on the floor.  I managed to get out an “I’ll fix it” before heading back to GM-Neverender’s farm. I found him there and explained my situation. He said he could help as long as I promised him my first born child. I immediately agreed and the deal was done….just kidding. ^__^ I did explain what happened and he was very understanding. He was extremely generous and gave me another land certificate for Grand Central Station. (thank you!!)

Luckily Astroasis had figured out the pesky transfer of materials and everyone had gotten to work on the Statue of Liberty. She came to my farm and placed the materials on the new base because I sure didn’t trust myself to do it! ^__^ Now by this time I had a pounding headache, and I should have been in bed already. My job requires a great deal of energy and losing sleep is never a good idea. I wished my guildmates good luck and headed to bed.

In the morning I logged on bright and early only to find out that we had lost. BUT, the Statue of Liberty had been completed! Many helped with the build, but Astroasis, ~*LeReiNa*~ and OKGirl pushed themselves to the limit and finished it. ^__^ Great work everyone!

Next up was Grand Central Station on my farm. Even though we hadn’t won the competition, everyone wanted to see the event through. ^__^ I was very thankful for all the help. We had all been excited to learn that these structures also functioned as houses. I wanted to get mine done before FB ended! Luckily my friends felt the same way. I had many guildmates help, but again, after I went to bed Astroasis and Malaree took turns working on Grand Central. I woke up the next morning to discover I only had about 150 whacks left! I decided to finish it before I went to work.

ALMOST THERE…….

and done! AND I wasn’t even late to work! haha!

As much as I wanted to complete the event, I never saw Cutie Jewelz online again and the Empire State Building was on her farm. Perhaps we’ll get the chance in Open Beta!

We all did our best and I am proud of my guildmates for their time, effort and selflessness! This was such a fun event and we got to be a part of building New York!!! How cool is that?