Kingdom of Loathing

"Stick-Figures, Stupidity and Superbness"

Introduction:
Kingdom Of Loathing. An MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) that can be found over at http://www.kingdomofloathing.com. A game that has seen the creation of nearly one million accounts over its three and a half year history. I myself have played the game since November 2003, I've seen the experienced nearly everything that the game can throw at you and enjoyed every minute of it. Most reviewers on other sites look at the game for five minutes and decide that it is crap, which I can tell you, is a complete lie, Kingdom Of Loathing (Kol for short) is one of the most addictive and fantastic games that I have ever played in my entire life, and it's FREE!

History:
Kol has a long history, full of its ups and downs, that I am going to try and summarise in a couple of paragraphs.
The Kingdom Of Loathing was created in 2003 by Zack Johnson (aka Jick), who couldn't find a comedy RPG that didn't completely revolve around player versus player combat, so he decided to make one.
With the help of his friend Josh Nite (Mr Skullhead), Jick created his RPG, and christened it the Kingdom Of Loathing, it had lots of traditional RPG features, such as character classes with their own traits and skills, stats and levels, monsters that could be fought, items that could be found and used, crafts that could turn items into better items, a chatpane and forums where players could discuss their experiences, and a small amount of player versus player content. The game also had lots of original features, the most innovative of which was 'adventures', each player was given 40 adventures every day and going to a location (where monsters could be fought or things could be done), cost 1 adventure, and when a player ran out of adventures, they were finished for the day unless they got themselves some more through items. The other main original feature of the game was its jokes, nearly everything in the game had a joke or pop-culture reference worked into it, and this was one of the things that made the game quickly popular.
As the game got more and more popular, bugs were discovered and exploited, players came and left, and new content was constantly added to keep the players happy. The game progressed like this for a little over two years, with a few major events caused by things like bugs (such as Black Sunday, a time when the entire games economy was ruined by bug exploitation) and accidents (Every players inventory being deleted).
On June the 9th, 2005, the game came out of its 'beta' stage with the coming of 'ascension', where players could defeat the final boss of the game and reincarnate as a level one player to play the game again, players were encouraged to ascend by the number of options available (for example - players can take ascensions where they have access to their old items, or ascensions where they have no access to these items) and the huge amounts of post-ascension content.
Since ascension, Kol has progressed very well, few bugs are found, the game is stable, the game is updated around the clock, the community is thriving and everybody is happy.

Storyline:
The Naughty Sorceress captures the king of the Kingdom Of Loathing, Ralph XI, and it is your job to rescue him, fighting your way through the sorceresses monsters to rescue him, you must then defeat her to rescue the king and then restore peace to the kingdom. Sometimes, sub-stories are part of the game as well, such as the Penguin Mafia's evildoings or the Grey Plague that threatened to turn all of Kol's players into zombies. It's all great.

Graphics/Sound:
Kol is in black and white and all of its graphics are stick figures. That is what hordes of people who see the game immediately dislike it for. Personally, I think the stick figures are great, they are simple and funny, and really show how the game is comedic rather than serious. The lack of colour is no problem either (can you even colour stick-figures?), but there's always those who think that the game should have Halo-style graphics, they are ignored. The game has no sound whatsoever.

Gameplay:
Where do I begin? Kol is highly addictive, once you start playing, you can never stop. You create your character on the main page, choosing which class you want to be, from there, you just activate your account and can play.
You get forty adventures a day (there are ways to get more) that you can use doing whatever you want, some things require adventures, and some don't. Adventuring allows you to go to areas and either explore them or fight monsters, getting stats that allow you to level, items that can be used to boost your characters power, or be used in your characters crafts and meat (the games currency) that can be used to buy things. Player versus Player (PvP) combat allows you to test your skills against others. The mall allows you to play the games economy, buying and selling like theirs no tomorrow. Clans allow you to be part of a group, you can share your stories, stuff and can even fight against other clans. The casino allows you to gamble your meat (which is the games equivalent of money) against either the computer or against others, as well as betting on the underground wrestling scene. Guilds allow you to train class-specific skills that allow you to be stronger in or out of combat, make better items with your crafts or improve other aspects of your game. The Museum allows you to see various records from the past, as well as display your collections of items for all to see. Familiars provide you with companionship, and can be raised as you raise yourself. Leaderboards give players the opportunity to prove that they are the best at a certain aspect of the game. Collectibles such as tattoos and trophies provide an extra challenge for perfectionists. The comedy is absolutely superb, as mentioned before, just about everything has a joke or reference in it (such as the dreaded Trouser Snake monster or the dancing Astral Badger familiar). It's all fantastic.

Community:
Kol, without a doubt, has one of the best communities I have ever seen. The first area of community is the Kmail system, players can send messages, items and meat to one another through a message system, though sending things between your own accounts is not allowed and gets you banned from the game). The second area of the community is chat, Kol's chat is made up of a series of channels, each channel is designed for a different thing, such as the trade channel, which is designed for trading, and the pvp channel, which is designed for PvP discussion, each channel has its own rules and policies (every channel forbids spoilers, flaming and bad links, whilst bad grammar is looked down on) these rules are enforced by a set of moderators, who are appointed by the games admins and have the power to ban wrongdoers from the chat.
The third area of the games community is the forums, Kol has a set of nine forums, one allows players to discuss the game, one allows players to discuss meet-ups and community issues, one allows players to ask questions about the game, one allows players to buy and sell things such as artwork and literature, one allows players to make contests, one allows players to discuss non-kol matters, one allows players to spam their hearts out, one allows players to insult and be horrible to one another, whilst the last is an archive of the above, each forum has its own guidelines and these are once again enforced by moderators, the forums also have many traditions and memes, with highlights being things such as a thread with a running GameFAQ's joke and yiffing, which I'm not even going to explain here. The fourth (and probably biggest) area of Kol's community is player projects, through the forums and the game, players can run all sorts of projects, ranging from philanthropic giveaways to pvp events and mall sales, some of the games bigger player projects are huge aspects of the game, Radio Kol is broadcast 24/7 by a team of superb DJ's, fansites such as the Kol Wiki provide information on absolutely everything in the game, artwork from all sorts of players is in high demand, magazines such as Kol Weekly and Syphilis attracted large amounts of readers, comics are read and laughed at by hundreds of forum members, literature is read and discussed, whilst game content is discovered by players who work together to find it. It's all excellent.

Lifespan:
Kol can literally last you forever, there are hundreds of different things you can accomplish, from having the best collection of a certain item to being top of a leaderboard, from having all the trophies to being one of the highest level players. It's all incredible.

Final Recommendation:
What can I say here that I haven't said already. Kol is one of the most addictive, enjoyable and deep games in the entire world, you don't have to pay a single penny to play it, there's so much to do and I've just been trying to convince you to play it for the last five minutes, go and sign up now. If you want to know anything else, I'm Firestorm ZERO (#8849), in game). An Adventurer Is You!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/18/06