Newsletter 4/1

[chrisb26]

Live and direct from VMK Central, it's the man with the VMK plan – ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, here's Yavn!

What in the Disney World?

Hey there! Yavn here. Ok, so we're getting reports that odd things are happening in the Kingdom. Esmeralda has sensed a portal opening in VMK that leads to another world and Shrunken Ned tells me that some odd looking Toons have also been spotted in our Virtual Magic Kingdom. Now I've got PirateVinnie and the rest of the VMK Staff looking into this and as soon as we can figure out what's going on, we'll let you know.

Anyway, I'm sure you want to know the theme for this month? Well, we've got, I mean had, some great plans, but somebody (cough, Yeti) lost them!
(Just between you and me, we're partnering with our pals at Toontown for a Topsy Turvy Toon month!)

What does this mean? Well, don't expect a new ToonTown land to show up in VMK, but it does mean a whole bunch of cool items and events. Stay "tooned" for more details – sorry I couldn't resist!

A Pirate's Quest for Me

Now about that Quest, first off, on behalf of myself and rest of the VMK staff, our hats are off to those of you who completed it. Yes, it was a hard Quest, but then again, I've never known a treasure hunt that offered such amazing treasure to be easy.

We were especially pleased to see VMK'ers working together in the Pirates and other games to complete the Quest. What we didn't appreciate were those of you that asked for answers (not doing the work while other players worked for hours), players who posted spoilers and the players who were just downright rude to other players in the game lobbies. There were other issues too which I'll get to in just a second...

Why did Captain Blackheart make the challenges in the Quest so difficult? Well, pirates are a crafty bunch, Blackheart is no different. Like all pirates, he wanted to make his treasure really hard to find.

I know that frustrated alot of you. We were frustrated too – we worked very hard to put this Quest together for you and thought you wanted (and deserved) amazing rewards – several players however, didn't think they should have to work to get them.

We all face many challenges in life and they aren't always easy to figure out – take it from me, anything worth doing takes time and determination. The old saying really does apply, cheaters don't prosper – and in the end, they just make it harder for the rest of us.

While we're on the topic of cheaters, one last comment about the Quest – I'll remind you again, using any program that modifies VMK or plays VMK for you is not only wrong, but against VMK Values and will get you banned. In short, if you didn't download it from VMK.com, don't use it with VMK! (And trust me, we know when you do...) Technical problems (as well as closing the Quest when we did) were a direct result of players that didn't follow these simple rules.

Rest assured, we learned quite a few things from this Quest that will greatly affect future events.

Finally, yes, it was a challenge, but we sincerely hope you enjoyed Captain Blackheart's Quest and even if you didn't complete the big one you got to play the mini-Quest and get some cool treasure. It's just a shame that some players had to spoil it for others and that's all I'll say about that.

Topsy Turvy beats Scurvy!

On a lighter note, we've ransacked those plundering pirates and are now working with wacky Toons! So what can you look forward to this month in VMK? How about some never-before-released Magic? We've got it! How about a new room? You want a sneak peak? Sure:

Now this looks like a nice place for some cool refreshment.

All this, plus other amazing stuff I can only hint to because I'm still looking for our Event Plan! Yeti! Walk with me to the Churro Cart... do you have any idea where you put those plans? What do you mean a Toon took them? What? Ok, show me which way he went... Yes, of course I'll buy you a churro...

Stay here guys, I'll be right back.
-Yavn

[chrisb26]

Okay I can't say much about this newsletter other then what a sad excuse is being used. Honestly I did like this quest it was very difficult but it rewarded you greatly also.

However they go and decided to and close the quest early then they use the excuse its because of the people that cheated and used programs to finish the quest. However they also stated they knew who used those programs. So basically VMK knows who cheated yet they are still going to punish the hundreds that were going to try and finish the quest tonight that had never cheated. What a sad excuse and a terrible decision by them. I honestly can't say more then that.

Other things it sounds like they are finally going to add some VMK machines in Disney World somewhere like they have in Disneyland my guess is in the Tomorrowland Arcade like where the rumors were before.

Also what is up first we have Pirates Online Month now ToonTown Month is Club Penguin Month next?

[Chescat]

We had at least 3 people after a full weekend of trying get through their pirates. They were going to finish the quest tonight and now this. I mean word of month from Phinny in Host Room last night said that the quest would conclude at noon today. It wasn't posted on VMK Front Page until this morning. And most of us didn't hear the word of mouth until after closing.

Why is it that when they want to punish the few that cheat, the cheaters never get punished (Narnia teleporters, everest, Jack Sparrow costume). They go on to sell the rare stuff and get more. And most of us even know who they are. And the rest of the community suffers the consequences. This is so wrong. This is another reason I've been fed up with VMK and been mostly playing on pirates. We spent a weekend on this and all a lot of people got was nothing. How fair was that?

There were a lot of people that also helped people through pirates and then turned around and got left at the dock when the people left. This was poorly thought out since only one person out of a team could win that amount they had. Add to that 45 to 1 hour waits in the Pirate lobby.

After 3 years, they haven't figured out what can be hacked and what can be. Dah! If its something so hard most people can't do it, the hackers will.

I guess that's why I'm so happy that I got to look forward to a new cutlass, pistol, staff, doll, and getting Level 40 on rat cat in pirates online. Tired of putting up with this ridulousness!

[jjramsey]

I guess that's why I'm so happy that I got to look forward to a new cutlass, pistol, staff, doll, and getting Level 40 on rat cat in pirates online. Tired of putting up with this ridulousness!

Sounds like fun, but please don't get lost in that other virtual world...there are still friends here that would miss you

[Chescat]

More I've been reading other boards the madder I'm getting. I agree with a lot of people. So the "Yavn" replacement is blaming all of us for being cheaters. Even if you had the answers, how many people finished it. Making a quest so hard most people can't even play it. Is it cheating that we had 6-8 people playing pirates for 2 1/2 solid days and only getting 9-10 people through cheating. Sitting waiting for lobbys for up to an hour and waiting another 20 mins for your team to get in. Lag was so bad some people crashed. Why don't they just admit they messed up. But blame their "customers" as somebody put it. The announcement for the shorten time should have been made yesterday. Not making poor Phinny be the one to mention it to somebody in host room last night and then it shows up today. Anybody in school or working got messed over after all their hard work.

I agree with others, isn't the target audience here kids. And as adults we barely could do it. I went to sleep 3 night in a row with a bad headache. Lots of people missed out on pirate items since this last month was ride a thons or quest stuff.

And finally the bottom line. Isn't this just virtual stuff? Am I missing something here? You'd think somebody had stolen pins or figurines from the store. This is "Un-Disney" like with this attitude.

Okay, I'm done ranting. Off to Pirates to go hacking and slashing at something.

[RicksCafe]

We spent a weekend on this and all a lot of people got was nothing. How fair was that?

Well... to be fair, they did say that many would begin the quest but few would finish.

That being said, it was highly inappropriate and unfair to end the quest the way they did. How easy would it have been to send one of those scary blue box announcements out during the day?

I did think it was morbidly humorous that moments after the quest was so abruptly curtailed and hundreds of sad souls were flying into a rage that we received a scary blue box inviting us to a Host event. Oh joy, oh rapture. How about an apology instead?

This clearly was an event with promise that again... was poorly planned and executed.

I am reminded of the first two dictums in RicksCafe's Tao of VMK:

1. Expect the unexpected: bend with the wind.

2. Assume nothing: flow like a brook.

Ricks (who cheats like the cheetah)

[Patricia]

There has never been a quest that didn't have answers posted somewhere on the web. We didn't start allowing answers to be posted here till Yavn was fully supporting a site (he was actively posting there) that did allow it, leading us to believe it was ok. Yavn never told them to stop. So John, rather then have all our members (including his own kids) have to go elsewhere, decided we should post them here. If they ever asked us to stop posting them, we would. This is the first we've heard of it. So, I'm not buying that 'posting answers' excuse all of a sudden. Even with the answers many people can't finish quests due to game scores. Also, I don't believe anyone would have had trouble with the answer parts of this quest anyway.

Programs to cheat I can see, but what is the percentage of players doing this? If they have people using programs, ban their Ip's. If they were already cheating all weekend anyway.. why stop, hours short, of the finish and hurt the people that worked so hard?

[mickeynuts]

I think they were frustrated by the posting of spoilers, but the cheaters they were referring to are those using programs to run the game. I've seen it was happening forever now though, why didn't they see how ridiculously fast people were finishing the staff quests? I know the ability to do this is out there, I've seen it in use. A player had a room set up like a clock, he stayed in there afk all day and the program moved the clock hands. It was so cool, but I had no thought that it would later be used like this (and i'm not saying it was that player who did it, he is well known and respected). What should have happened is a ban for those cheaters or at the very least they should have lost their prizes. Stopping the quest early for everybody because of them was just plain wrong. What I think they should do now is offer some of the prizes for sale. I know there would be yelling about that, but the credits alone were worth doing the quest and being able to buy some of the other prizes would make a lot of people feel better.
I know it's not much, but I've been giving away the prizes I get from the TD magic to people who didn't pass the quest. It's small but it's something.
Laura