As a Founding Member of Hello Kitty Online (you may now be seated), I was hoping to install it last night with the hopes that I would have better experiences with it now, than I did in closed beta.
In closed beta, I could not patch the game — at all. Only when HKO would release each patch as a separate download that I could run locally could I get into the game.
VERY frustrating. So much so that I eventually stopped playing.
HKO entered “Founder’s Beta” last Tueday, so I figured I’d give it a shot last night. After a ***2 gigabyte*** download, which they required you do through BitTorrent, I tried to launch it and — nothing. The cursor would spin for hours. I would watch an episode of Buffy — “The Prom” (I cried at the end even though I knew Angel wouldn’t abandon Buffy) — then check in on HKO and still, a spinning cursor. The two part “Graduation Day” — where the Mayor is trying to assure himself that though things look bad, his adopted daughter, Faith, won’t die, will be all right — hit a really personal note with me.
When I looked again, Windows Vista was reporting a file error.
So no gaming got done last night.
I guess I’ll just wait for release, buy the disk, and not worry about these mega-installs.
Why play Hello Kitty Online? It’s a game meant for kids, in closed beta, it was really grindy with that click-to-move interface Asian gamers apparently love so much but doesn’t really mesh with Western play styles, a title depending more upon its IP than any real innovation in game play? A game combined with social networking aspects that will likely be done better by SOE when Free Realms comes out?
It’s because it’s HELLO KITTY! And if THAT isn’t reason enough to play — then you aren’t the target market for the game.
I’ve given up on HKO for the time being.
Just going to wait till I can walk manfully into my local games emporium and pick up my, hopefully garishly PINK pre-order discs. One day.
till then… WAAAAGH!!!
So, no contrast there, eh?