February IotM

Little bit late on all ends but just as messy, it's this month's item up for grabs:

Sorry for the delay on this, I was too flabbergasted to see that there's 4TH LIBRAM IN THE GAME. Again, I don't see the strategy of being shunned out on Mr. Store stuff when new Librams are being pumped out once a year. Yes, YOU COULD spread it out and go across the board but if you're looking for a particular drop like say a champagne popper that don't happen to be regularly summoned, all this "strategy" turns into "hoping and praying". This is why, separate rising MP costs need to be mandatory if this shit continues. Same goes for the summons on Tomes.

With that said, this seems to be targeted to casual players...at this point. The data still out on the stats but still, what you can be able to make from all this wouldn't really help you during the ascending game. There's nothing for farmers so that's not appealing to them, can't really say for stat gainers because that data has yet to be spaded (but who would gather that many bricks during an ascension?). If anything, it's for hoarders and trade bait and with the way trade's been, they could use a little pick me up however I don't think this would be used effectively to stimulate the trade channel (making the game better would be better alternative, but that's another story for another day). Anyway, with 2 BRICKO bricks ranging all the way up to 6900 (so far) to where you can fight various monsters and get certain rewards from them, most of which are combat items. (Again if you wanted combat items, should've picked up a Divine Libram.) There also happens to be a familiar that's more of a useless shill (like the floaty rock/rock lobster) than actually helping you. Though reading through the lines, people will see this and try to make a quick penny off of it like they always do with unspaded content.

Smoot's Verdict: As much as you can make with these things, I've yet to see a reference towards Eggos or a giant waffle monster that you can fight. Better yet, I'm quite suprised that you can't construct a "Brick made of BRICKO bricks" and just knock the bejesus out of someone with it. Even then, it's still no reason to jump Mr. A's up to 6.2 mil because there's not a lot here that you can do with it other than constructing literally giagantic monsters with minimal returns. Not worth it and not worth the investment.

Recent Stuff - Poll Results - Wrap Up

Now with more free time than Conan O'Brien, it's me xSmootx with your daily monthly overview with what's going on in the game.

So there's been some stuff going on in the game, stuff to where Jick and Skully just don't care about the game really anymore. Mostly because of the CDM related updates which I'll get to in a moment but first, we apparently had a trader visit awhile ago. I say apparently because the item he had this time around didn't really stir a frenzy much like the jars of swamp gas and the initial reaction to the strange shiny discs (which I still have some by the way.). Instead, it was a skillbook for saucerors only that deals stinky spell damage in combat. The damage formula for said skill is pretty much similar to the likes of Saucestorm only it does stench and you don't get penalized. So it's an okay skill to have but is there really any point to having this? I mean, don't get me wrong I personally think Stench is one of the most underused and overlooked elements in the game but was there something right this very instant that merited a Stinky Saucestorm spell? If anything the whole stunt seemed to just release something that they couldn't fit into anywhere of the game so "SURPRISE! Here's a lame skill for you to have!". Who knows, maybe people with the skill will get a discount next time the Trader comes around. I think the point I'm trying to get to here is that, if you're going to put the trader out there make it worthwhile and put a dent in all these twinkly wads floating around.

CDM's been tinkering away I see with unnecessary updates I see, which means that it's time once again for:

Let's see. Ah we can now mark certain familiars as favorites so that we can easily switch between one another. Aw man, it's not like there's an unnecessary Greasemonkey script out there that is so unwanted in the game right now that has to contribute to CDM's time to actually put it in the game and adding to the reputation that CDM does nothing but add in useless Greasemonkey stuff that was pointed out by Fineldar back in '08. I mean, that would just be mindblowing....

That's exactly what happened (Thanks Fineldar!). Let's be honest could your life in KoL have continued, had this update not occured? As a non-GM user yes, yes it would. I would rather much see a beneficial change towards something like fixing the wonkyness with auto attack that made me lose my clod hopper chain (was only a matter of time of happening anyway with the current settings) or whatever happened to the right click feature in the inventory that takes you the use multiple page for things like mummy wrappings, duct tape, palm fronds, etc,. instead of the little handy dandy box coming up that makes crafting said listed things a pain in the ass. A change to Dependance Day to where you can use more than one firework. The supposed PvP revamp which by the way, still hasn't fucking happened yet. Better yet a change that takes the fucking Sea out of the game. Or how about a change that erases the past year and half of them being excused from class for not knowing the difference between their ass and their elbow. Nope, instead of taking care of the million things on the backburner they hire some putz to just copypasta GM into the game. Lovely.

Oh also, Trophies are now drag and droppable. Thanks Ajax! I don't know how I would've functioned on javascript in a competant browser without your help . And the skills page doesn't look all that bad of a clusterfuck. Yip-pee.

Anywho, here's the poll results which apologies for getting them out this late (though it was expected amirite!?) had some computer difficulties here to which prevented me from uploading stuff to the net and once it got resolved it took me awhile to catch up on the backlog of stuff that I missed (like trying to snag a new digital camera). So anyone wants to complain on that, there's your reasoning for the tardyness.:

COMMENTS:

PrettyCoolGuy said on Dec 26 2009, 02:22 PM:
I miss my unlimited scaling monsters, damn you! Also, the Crimbo 11 playing got REAL old, and the presents from yesterday are weaksauce. Though I did enjoy some of the new items and the lesser lag.

JohnDoe244 said on Dec 29 2009, 03:36 PM:
Same shitty toymaking? Wait... no. Unlimited scaling monsters causing bitch lag? Uh... nope. "Gradually unfolding content" dumped out in a week? Nuh-uh. Pointlessly tedious quest? No. Mediocre story. Mediocre items. Mediocre minigame. A solid 5/10. Not bad for holiday content.

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PrettyCoolGuy said on Dec 20 2009, 12:29 PM:
To pull from the comment I mistakenly placed in the old poll...I like it. It's a huge step up from its weaker previous counterparts (December IotMs) and if it does something useful, what's there to complain about? I just wish it was a fairy too or something instead.

JohnDoe244 said on Dec 29 2009, 03:30 PM:
Best December IotM? Check. Interesting underused familiar (i.e. not another volleyball)? Check.

Jade Dragon Piece said on Jan 14 2010, 11:08 AM:
Does it hurt to basically have every poll you put on your website prove you are the only person who actually believes the stuff you say?

Smoot's Input: The game's slowly losing it's uniqueness and creativity (of ripping off WoW) that it once had and allured players. If anything that's what the Crimbo event showed me and quite honestly it doesn't really surprise me that the guys are abandoning all hope and possibly focusing on a new game to make. The real shot to the nuts were the investors of the dollhives/houses such as myself who still had one or two original dollhouses from the first toymaking event. Seriously, gymming turns away for meta currency for either expensive past items or shitty new ones. What the fuck.
As far as the IotM is concerned, there's no way that I can excited over a cocoabo as a premium item. If I really want the candy I can just get it from the mall because they're tradeable for whatever bizarro bass-ackwards reasoning behind it. Also, hi Jade. Nice to see that you still have a trolling ability equivalent to dogshit.

New poll's currently in place, I'll shoot for having the results up around the start of February.

That's gonna be it for now. I feel like I gotten back to my roots of throwing people under buses even if it is a sporadic occurance here lately. Think of it as a newsletter sort of thing. Anywho, I'm currently doing stuff on my new site and always fiddling around on twitter. Be sure to check both of them out and rage on whatever it is on either of those. Since I haven't alienated my KoL folks with this yet, I'll go for it. If anyone's interested in Swagbucks, lemme know by shooting me a kmail in game, comment here,...either way lemme know so that I can hook you up and be helping me out in return. Until next time, have a good one folks!

Poll Results

Sorry about the delay on this, I think I had something scheduled to where I was just going to release the results on one of the updateless weeks, but I forgot about it. Anyway, there's 2 new polls up and ready currently and they'll stay up until around Jan 1st. Here's the results on the November IotM:

COMMENTS:

JohnDoe244 said on Nov 18 2009, 02:13 PM:
It's another thing on the "list of BS, cockblocking crap to add to my mafia scripts". Really should have just been a Mr. Store skill that you could buff your familiars by 10lb five times a day, but then it'd be ruined in some way by the bookshelf.

PrettyCoolGuy said on Dec 10 2009, 02:08 PM:
It's a pretty big step up from a lot of the other December IotM familiars, and I think the cocoabo feature is more of a bonus with the candy being the reason you actually use it. And the candy's pretty good so...I like it. It would have been nice if it were a fairy or volley too, but hey.

PrettyCoolGuy said on Dec 17 2009, 09:39 AM:
Well, there's egg on my face. I assumed you would update with the new poll on the 1st and didn't read the query, just to make my reply. Oh well. I'm sure you get the point. (And I thought I made a reply on the Feast already...weird. I like it because I didn't feel like I had to buy it for my playstyle)

Smoot's Verdict: Shitty equipment that'll fade into obscurity much like the mayflower familiar equip. Just nothing there to have it stand out.

I'll have the December IotM Poll Results up within the next couple of days. Hoping to have some sort of actual entry to go along with it as well. Stay tuned!

January IotM

Alrighty folks, wanna wish again everyone a Merry Crimbo to where hopefully they got something better in real life than what we got in the game and wanna wish everybody a Happy New Year. Here's hoping we all start off on the right foot:

Totally forgot about the making of a stinkberglet. I guess after 4 miserable failures, you kinda assume the 5th will fall into line. Well this one, in particular I wouldn't call a miserable failure. Failure yes, but miserable no. Right off the bat this item is already limited to what it can do by having things capped at certain numbers. This is Lose/Lose because the item is limited to what it can pull off as I just said but if the caps weren't there it would be extremely godly, would shit on other items...er sorry, "Crimbo" other items, and not only that it would send Mr. A's back through the fucking roof. Anyway, let's go through what things this turns into.

For starters it has a normal stench weapon.......nothing much else to say. If you're in a pinch or had some situation where you said to yourself "Gee, if only I had a Stench weapon..." this would be the tool to get the job done I guess. It's nothing fancy and is limited to doing 33.Infini-three damage. Yay?

The next item up that this thing can turn into is a Chefstaff. Now we're talking. However the Chefstaff is mediocre at best, and believe me I'm being nice here. It fills in the niche chefstaffs around the middle levels so again, if you're in a pinch where "Gee, I wish I had a chefstaff where I could mediocre damage even though I could craft several other better ones..." then this is the item for you. The MP regen is piss poor and the Spell Damage is okay but antiqued by % Spell Damage. I guess the selling point for this staff is "Hey at least you don't have to craft anything" with a slight incentive of being the less capped item this berglet has to offer at being 100. Let's move on...

Tied with the Stench weapon as being the most least imaginitve and least useful item in this berglet, we have a shield that does X Damage Absorption! Shield lovers will probably be "This is the bestest item evar!" except not when you have a Pilgrim Shield that does a whole lot more. Me personally, I'm biased because shields are an unnecessary defense in the game and much like Combat Initiative, Shields turn me off towards them in the game. The magic number this item is capped at is 50. Yippee. Now let's get to the serious stuff...

The pants item I kinda have problems with because as nice as the + turns at rollover is (capped at 10), it steps on the toes of the Counterclockwise Watch. To be honest, it was a matter of time before they ruined the specialness of one of the last remaining Ultra Rares that aren't trumped by something else in the game. In terms of what's easier to get, a Mr. Store item is by far way easier to get than an Ultra Rare (unless Mr. A's are unobtainable). Yeah yeah, I know the watch is an accessory and this is a pants item which leads me to my next point. I already have a time outfit and get said bonus from having the outfit. This would get in the way as I would rather have the outfit bonus than this item. See the problem? I like and would want the 10 turns but I don't want to sub out my time pants for the bonus. So unless there's a double pants skill in the future, this item as much as I hate to say this, sucks and is useless like Skully's writing.

Finally the last item is the finale to the berglet where it treats both Item and Meat farming. So it's a Mr. A Jr with a little extra into it or if they ever make Ms. Accessory into something that isn't a big pile of nothing. And I say that because the item caps at 20%. So really, a Mr. A Jr and a Meat Gem somehow merged together would be better than this item. If anything this item treats noobs as a quick way to get into the meat/item farming game seeing how you can have more than one equipped in the accessory slot. Not a great item for veterans of the game. Which leads me to my conclusion of this item.

Smoot's Verdict: As I said it's not all that bad but at the same time not all that great. If you're new and need a little extra oomph into your playstyle, I could see someone picking one of these up. However, for people like me I don't need Stench damage, Damage Reduction, or a weak chefstaff. With the things that are nice, are capped low because they would crush the value of past Mr. Store items/Ultra Rares if they were capped higher or uncapped...and if that happened, I would be complaining about that instead and questioning their thoughtprocess of making these (as if I don't already do). So really, they shot themselves in the foot once they made this before it got released. One thing that's nice is that neither of these items from the Stinkberglet doesn't have a shitty fucking chat effect, and that's a plus. So to sum it up, yet another Mr. Store item targeted towards noobs and doesn't do dick for players like myself. Not worth my time and certainly not worth a Mr. A.

That's gonna do it for me, tomorrow I think I'll post those late poll results, then post the current ones and then place a new poll in place...rinse, lather, repeat. Also also, if I have the time I wanna put together a special piece to close out 2009/decade in KoL. Until then, I'll be on twitter (http://twitter.com/xsmootx) and on my other site (http://xsmootx.com), talking about other non-KoL stuff if you're a die hard Smoot fan. Anywho, until next time everybody!

Lemme pull an asymmetric move right quick...