The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So I just want to talk about KoL. Sorry.
Tonight I did a bunch of research about Basementing. I would like to have a telescope. But that just seems so damn boring in a game where I feel like I have so many other goals to work for… if there was something like that in Twilight Heroes right now? I’d do it, no question. But here… maybe after I get bored of collecting skills, but not yet. No.
Other than that, though, it’s weird to me that now that I’m doing a hardcore run, I want so badly to do things with the Mall (which is one of the things you can’t do in Hardcore). I want to buy an Ancient Yuletide Troll. Why? I dunno, the carols just seem like fun, and they’re still selling for only a little over a Mr. A. How do I know this? Well, I recently found out about this nifty Mall Market Search Thing. It’s really cool! And it makes me think about picking up cheaper Mr. Store items I missed… the other maybe would probably be the Penguin Goodfella. It currently costs LESS than a Mr. A in the mall! And it’s certainly useful, if not completely impressive… but having more items to Funksling is always nice. They apparently cost meat to use, though… but weight times 3 meat… At most it’s going to get up to 40 pounds… 120 meat is nothing at all, really, in softcore, which is where I normally live. Anyway, it’s an idea. I’ve finally warmed up to the idea of Mr. Familiars, really, especially since I am in the process of loving my Mad Hatrack to death… He’s probably going to be a dedicated familiar for my hardcore excursions because he works so well and so neat, even without my Mayflower Bouquet or origami “gentlemen’s” magazine, and especially since he can’t use those anyway. Well, he can, but he’d be 1 pound of useless if he did.
At this point, in all honesty I should probably wait until there’s an Item of the Month I don’t want, and then pick one of these up instead… but who knows. It’s almost my birthday. I might give in and treat myself. We’ll see.

I still think the Virtual Reality Helmet is really boring, though. I had this rant at Brer, but I think I’m going to try to sort of… sum it up… basically, as far as what I will and won’t donate for in these sorts of games… I want to be entertained. That’s why I play. I play because it’s fun, and if you’re making a game that’s fun, I am more than willing to support you by slipping you some cash. I don’t think, however, it’s unfair of me to ask for some in-game benefit, and that’s where the items of the month (and, in the case of Forumwarz, removing the annoying ads) comes in. When I get such an item, though, I’m not in it to be better, faster, stronger, whatever. I want more entertaining things to do. The Virtual Reality Helmet makes me better at things I can already do in the game. This is boring, and I do not want it. The Hero’s Cape, an item so expensive and so coveted right now, is boring to me. It lets me cast more spells, but I can already cast spells. Unlike some players, I don’t MIND burning turns resting. There’s always more I can do tomorrow. Now, the Pouch of Many Lost Things, the one donation item I DO have in Twilight Heroes, now that is fun. It lets me do something I couldn’t do otherwise. It gives me fun little buffs with fun little descriptions. The buffs themselves may not be special, but the fact is that not everyone has a pouch. Especially as time goes on, those who have one will become less and less, and those buffs will become more and more unique, and I can help people out by buffing them with them. This is really appealing, and the fact that it gives you a bonus effect for buffing someone else (Toasty Heart) just makes it all the cooler. That is something new and different I couldn’t do before, so I wanted it. Granted, there are powergaming benefits, too. The Lost Remote Controls and Lost Toys are really damn useful to cut down on turns resting, and before I dump the pouch out its a fairly effective piece of farming equipment.
Does this translate over into my KoL acquisitions? I believe so, although for different reasons in most cases. Most KoL items I have picked up because they entertain me. Sure, they offer game benefits as well, but I’d be lying if I told you I picked up a Crimbo P.R.E.S.S.I.E. for any reason other than the Can Has Cyborger buff and all the humor that comes with it. I picked up the Mad Hatrack because it does so many different things, and has so many different messages for me to see and laugh at. Naughty Origami Kit was a combination of loving the magazine messages and liking the whole mechanic of one item being many, and you can keep changing it about at the cost of damage. That’s something nothing else in the game does, so it interests me. Compare this to some of the high-powered items I have passed up. The Libram of Divine Favors is crazy powerful, but I can do everything it does by other means, although not as well. The Green Pixie I found kind of boring, thematically, and although there is a lot of content in the Worm Wood, which you’d think I’d want, I can get there easily just by buying tiny bottles of absinthe in the mall (where they’re selling for a mere 200 meat), if I ever want to experience it a few times and get the outfit there. After that, I doubt I’d be the sort of person to want to farm Not-A-Pipes, so I really don’t need extended access.
Does my theory make sense? I’m not saying Ryme and the KoL guys should NOT make items that are just powerful. They obviously sell, and get people who enjoy the fun of investing in and playing the market to buy more of them. I want them to succeed, so if that gets them more money, they should have at it. But if you want my money, you need to give me the silly stuff. The fun stuff. The enjoyable stuff that I can smile at again and again. Every time I return a lost item to someone, or try out a new hat to see what my Mad Hatrack does and how useful it is, I am getting all the benefits I could really ask for. I’ll keep getting those items of the month.

Wow, that turned into quite a rant. I just wanted to mention one more thing. This about card games, specifically the World of Warcraft card game. Tycho posted a short description of him running the Molten Core raid deck with Gabe and friends. I realized then and there how badly I wanted that experience. It’s… it would be like playing something like Arkham Horror or some such, only totally a collectable card game. I want to play! But I don’t want to invest in the WoW card game that much… Gathering Ground sells WoW singles at non-crazy prices, though… so a plan has entered my head based around making several people order up just one deck, shouldn’t cost them more than 10, 15 bucks if they don’t buy any crazy rares. This deck would be the kind of character they’d like to play in a WoW raid. I’d do a shaman deck, Jonathan would tank, whatever… and then we’d just use those decks just to play the new Raid decks as they come out. Maybe buy a few more singles to spruce them up, but have no other connection to the card game.
This is probably completely a dream, but I can hope. I really want to give those three raid decks a try.