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I like KOL but I think it's clear the game is losing its audience
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* OnceOriginalNowCommon: ''[=KoL=]'' enjoyed much of its success in the late 2000s, having between 100k-150k players on average in 2008. The idea of a completely free [=MMORPG=] with loads of content, irreverent and ReferenceOverdosed humor, and a unique StylisticSuck art style appealed to many college students and young adults who needed a time killer and found the game to be more in-depth and engaging than it seemed on the surface. Over the decades, the game has declined in popularity, reaching only a few hundred concurrent players on average in 2024. Most of the target audience grew out of it, and with [=KoL=]'s style of humor becoming more common while the concept of a mainly text-based turn-based {{Web Game|s}} feels increasingly dated, the game is a much harder sell these days.
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A Date With Rosie Palms is no longer a trope
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** Also, killing the hermit. For the record, it's impossible, despite many rumours. Nowadays, "killing the hermit" is a euphemism among players of the game for [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbation]].
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** Also, killing the hermit. For the record, it's impossible, despite many rumours. Nowadays, "killing the hermit" is a euphemism among players of the game for [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbation]].masturbation.
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* FunnyAneurysmMoment: Before he was let go, donating to the game would occasionally cause [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Advertisements#Mr._Skullhead a message of thanks to appear from Mr. Skullhead]]. Some of them are a fair bit more tragic in hindsight:
--> "As the only member of the Asymmetric staff without any marketable skills, I humbly thank you from the bottom of my heart for your donation, which will help keep me employed and off the streets."\\
"...because of donors like you, the last decade of my life has been spent doing a creatively fulfilling job as part of a great community. So thank you, from the sub-cockular regions of my heart."
--> "As the only member of the Asymmetric staff without any marketable skills, I humbly thank you from the bottom of my heart for your donation, which will help keep me employed and off the streets."\\
"...because of donors like you, the last decade of my life has been spent doing a creatively fulfilling job as part of a great community. So thank you, from the sub-cockular regions of my heart."
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* HarsherInHindsight: Before he was let go, donating to the game would occasionally cause [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Advertisements#Mr._Skullhead a message of thanks to appear from Mr. Skullhead]]. Some of them are a fair bit more tragic in hindsight:
--> "As the only member of the Asymmetric staff without any marketable skills, I humbly thank you from the bottom of my heart for your donation, which will help keep me employed and off the streets."\\
"...because of donors like you, the last decade of my life has been spent doing a creatively fulfilling job as part of a great community. So thank you, from the sub-cockular regions of my heart."
--> "As the only member of the Asymmetric staff without any marketable skills, I humbly thank you from the bottom of my heart for your donation, which will help keep me employed and off the streets."\\
"...because of donors like you, the last decade of my life has been spent doing a creatively fulfilling job as part of a great community. So thank you, from the sub-cockular regions of my heart."
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* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Asbestos and chrome really ''are'' mined, despite appearing in an improbable fantasy mine in with the likes of linoleum and asbestos is attributed to fossilised dragons. They do not come in huge ore chunks, though. Jick admitted that he didn't know this when he wrote it.
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** The Pocket Familiars ChallengeRun is widely considered a fun and unique path... with one ''massive'' problem: since both sides use familiars, even the weakest trash mob fight takes ''several minutes'' to get through. The pace of play slows to an absolute crawl, taking up ''much'' more real-world time than the game usually does. Many players refuse to play the path because of this.
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* NintendoHard: A common criticism leveled at the 2013 Christmas content. To get the good limited-time items it was necessary to fight monsters that scaled to your level while under a massive debuff, and it essentially wasn't doable for players who didn't have access to a lot of Mr. Store content or millions of meat to blow on items.
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* SurpriseDifficulty: A common criticism leveled at the 2013 Christmas content was how NintendoHard it was compared to the rest of the game. To get the good limited-time items it was necessary to fight monsters that scaled to your level while under a massive debuff, and it essentially wasn't doable for players who didn't have access to a lot of Mr. Store content or millions of meat to blow on items.
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* AcceptableTargets: [[NewAgeRetroHippie Hippies]], frat boys, snooty artists, furries, Canadians, Goths... this game makes fun of everyone.
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** The latest base breaker comes in the form of "Type 69". First, a bit of elaboration: Challenge paths were introduced into the game as a fun, free content vector that allows people to spice up the game in any number of ways that they wish. Additionally, one is released every real world season (so four a year) and doing one during the three month "season" block in which it's introduced gives bonus karma which is a great way to perm skills and advance your characer. The summer 2014 path, however, came with a bonus stipulation known as Type 69 or "Trendy". With this stipulation in place, you cannot use '''any''' limited time item that is more than one year old. This includes items purchased from the Mr. Store. Trendy was promised to be included and mandatory on all future challenge paths but only during their "season" (which is once again the only time you can earn bonus karma for doing them). The playerbase quickly became split between people who see the need for Trendy (it breaks up stagnant play, allows the developers to get more creative with future content, and it brings more challenge to ''''challenge'''' paths), and those who abhor it (they see it as anti-fun, depriving them of items they bought with real currency, and locks most players out of competitively or even casually playing challenge paths while they're at their most valuable).
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** The latest base breaker comes in the form of "Type 69". First, a bit of elaboration: Challenge paths were introduced into the game as a fun, free content vector that allows people to spice up the game in any number of ways that they wish. Additionally, one is released every real world season (so four a year) and doing one during the three month "season" block in which it's introduced gives bonus karma which is a great way to perm skills and advance your characer. The summer 2014 path, however, came with a bonus stipulation known as Type 69 or "Trendy". With this stipulation in place, you cannot use '''any''' limited time item that is more than one year old. This includes items purchased from the Mr. Store. Trendy was promised to be included and mandatory on all future challenge paths but only during their "season" (which is once again the only time you can earn bonus karma for doing them). The playerbase quickly became split between people who see the need for Trendy (it breaks up stagnant play, allows the developers to get more creative with future content, and it brings more challenge to ''''challenge'''' paths), and those who abhor it (they see it as anti-fun, depriving them of items they bought with real currency, and locks most players out of competitively or even casually playing challenge paths while they're at their most valuable).
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* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: One has to feel sorry for Jick and Skullhead. They put so much time and effort into designing the Bugbear Invasion path, and the response from most of the playerbase? "It's not Boris 2.0? Screw it."
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* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: ComplacentGamingSyndrome:
** One has to feel sorry for Jick and Skullhead. They put so much time and effort into designing the Bugbear Invasion path, and the response from most of the playerbase? "It's not Boris 2.0? Screw it."
** One has to feel sorry for Jick and Skullhead. They put so much time and effort into designing the Bugbear Invasion path, and the response from most of the playerbase? "It's not Boris 2.0? Screw it."
** According to the wiki, nearly every fast ascension used one of the Degrassi Knoll moon signs. The Garage lets you just buy the Meatcar parts (and most Meat Maid parts), saving many Adventures, Innabox does smithing for you (saving meat ''and'' adventures), and the mushroom fields provide some nice consumables if you know how to use them.
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** Less arguably, the Smith's Tome. What does it do? It lets you, up to 3 times a day, summon a Lump of Brituminous Coal, a handful of Smithereens, and a Flaskfull of Hollow. The Brituminous Coal can be smithed into equipment that gives you a few small boosts, including +5 to a new stat called Smithsness... and one very ''large'' boost that scales with your current Smithsness. Yes, Smithsness is essentially a redo of Hobo Power, but much more accessible. As for the other two, the Flaskfull of Hollow adds +25 Smithsness and a Smith-scaled boost to all stats for a whopping 150 turns. And the Smithereens can be crafted into fairly useful combat items, or fairly good consumable items which (RuleOfThree, everyone) can grant ''a buff adding to your Smithsness''. More annoyingly, the Smiths equipment can be pulverized into more Smithereens, adding ''even more'' value to the turn-free smithing from Degrassi Knoll moon signs that were already regarded as too good. Until it expired from Standard, nearly every discussion by StopHavingFunGuys on the forums included some form of the question "how the hell are Jick and co going to make the game stop centering around Smithsness without just making a new even breakier GameBreaker?" Jick has stated that a new Tome item won't be available until Smith's type69s out for exactly this reason. (Though he seems to have decided on just not having Tomes ''at all'' anymore.)
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** Less arguably, the Smith's Tome. What does it do? It lets you, up to 3 times a day, summon a Lump of Brituminous Coal, a handful of Smithereens, and a Flaskfull of Hollow. The Brituminous Coal can be smithed into equipment that gives you a few small boosts, including +5 to a new stat called Smithsness... and one very ''large'' boost that scales with your current Smithsness. Yes, Smithsness is essentially a redo of Hobo Power, but much more accessible. As for the other two, the Flaskfull of Hollow adds +25 Smithsness and a Smith-scaled boost to all stats for a whopping 150 turns. And the Smithereens can be crafted into fairly useful combat items, or fairly good consumable items which (RuleOfThree, everyone) can grant ''a buff adding to your Smithsness''. More annoyingly, the Smiths equipment can be pulverized into more Smithereens, adding ''even more'' value to the turn-free smithing from Degrassi Knoll moon signs that were already regarded as too good. Until it expired from Standard, nearly every discussion by StopHavingFunGuys on the forums included some form of the question "how the hell are Jick and co going to make the game stop centering around Smithsness without just making a new even breakier GameBreaker?" Jick has stated that a new Tome item won't be available until Smith's type69s out for exactly this reason. (Though he seems to have decided on just not having Tomes ''at all'' anymore.)
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* MemeticMutation: In the game's forums, "X makes [[SelfImposedChallenge hardcore]] easier" was a meme regarding the [[BribingYourWayToVictory Mr. Store]] familiars. This was, of course, before the addition of a "Bad Moon" option which prevented the use of such items.
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* MemeticMutation: MemeticMutation:
** In the game's forums, "X makes [[SelfImposedChallenge hardcore]] easier" was a meme regarding the [[BribingYourWayToVictory Mr. Store]] familiars. This was, of course, before the addition of a "Bad Moon" option which prevented the use of such items. And before newer pieces of Mr. Store equipment were made usable in Hardcore (at the cost of becoming untradable once you unpackage them).
** In the game's forums, "X makes [[SelfImposedChallenge hardcore]] easier" was a meme regarding the [[BribingYourWayToVictory Mr. Store]] familiars. This was, of course, before the addition of a "Bad Moon" option which prevented the use of such items. And before newer pieces of Mr. Store equipment were made usable in Hardcore (at the cost of becoming untradable once you unpackage them).
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* ThatOnePuzzle: The lava maze during the Nemesis quest, a deliberate, lampshaded example. Fail it (losing HP in the process) enough times and you get the option to skip it [[EasyModeMockery at the cost of 10 adventures and a lessened reward]].
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** The front door to the Naughty Sorceress' tower requires multiple keys, including the three Hero Keys, which each cost one Fat Loot Token. You earn Fat Loot Tokens by completing the Daily Dungeon, which you can only do once per day. This all but ''guarantees'' that any Hardcore run will take at least three days, making {{Speed Run}}s very tricky. There's a spell that gives you one key for free, but that still leaves two days' worth of keys unless you get really lucky exploiting the Full-Length Mirror (which drops a duplicate of one of your equipped items) and zapping (which might turn certain pieces of equipment into the needed keys).
*ThatOnePuzzle: ThatOnePuzzle:
** The lava maze during the Nemesis quest, a deliberate, lampshaded example. Fail it (losing HP in the process) enough times and you get the option to skip it [[EasyModeMockery at the cost of 10 adventures and a lessened reward]].
*
** The lava maze during the Nemesis quest, a deliberate, lampshaded example. Fail it (losing HP in the process) enough times and you get the option to skip it [[EasyModeMockery at the cost of 10 adventures and a lessened reward]].
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** The Level 9 revamp (see ThatOneLevel below). Some players found the new content hilarious and original; others, however, found it tedious, the Smut Orcs area puerile, and the peaks boring and full of spiteful bashing of the StarWars prequels and re-edits. Speedrunners are generally united in their hatred of the revamp, meanwhile, as an area that could (with proper preparation) be completed in one turn has given way to one that cannot be solved in less than several dozen.
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** The Level 9 revamp (see ThatOneLevel below). Some players found the new content hilarious and original; others, however, found it tedious, the Smut Orcs area puerile, and the peaks boring and full of spiteful bashing of the StarWars Franchise/StarWars prequels and re-edits. Speedrunners are generally united in their hatred of the revamp, meanwhile, as an area that could (with proper preparation) be completed in one turn has given way to one that cannot be solved in less than several dozen.
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then it's not "alternative" is it?
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* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: The Council of Loathing. Are they just the simple standins for the king who give you your quests or an evil group of individuals in league with the Naughty Sorceress. They start off simply getting you to do some of their dirty work (What do they use that mosquito larva for?) and as you get stronger try to send you to your death. And when you finally defeat the Sorceress and free the King they pretty much outright tell you to go kill yourself, as soon as you oblige the Sorceress suspiciously comes back and steals the King again.
** Actually, the "evil" interpretation seems to be canon. See [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/The_History_of_the_Penguin_Mafia The History of the Penguin Mafia]], where the Mafia at one point actually looked like the preferable alternative. At the very least, if they aren't evil, they're incredibly incompetent.
** The 2015 revamp of the Naughty Sorceress quest seems to have fully canonized this interpretation:
-->"Wait a second," you reply, astonished. "The Council said the king was imprismed right before I got here. How can the Sorceress have been here for four thousand years?"\\
"The Council?" exclaims Frank. "''That'' corrupt buncha clowns is runnin' the show now? Jeez, no wonder nobody survives this."
** Actually, the "evil" interpretation seems to be canon. See [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/The_History_of_the_Penguin_Mafia The History of the Penguin Mafia]], where the Mafia at one point actually looked like the preferable alternative. At the very least, if they aren't evil, they're incredibly incompetent.
** The 2015 revamp of the Naughty Sorceress quest seems to have fully canonized this interpretation:
-->"Wait a second," you reply, astonished. "The Council said the king was imprismed right before I got here. How can the Sorceress have been here for four thousand years?"\\
"The Council?" exclaims Frank. "''That'' corrupt buncha clowns is runnin' the show now? Jeez, no wonder nobody survives this."
