Inside Social Games

If there is any one Japanese, pop-culture icon that most people should be familiar with it is the cute cartoon cat, Hello Kitty. The downloadable title, Hello Kitty Online, published by Aeria Games, seems like a great fit for the franchise.

To clarify, Hello Kitty Online (HKO) is not a true “social” game like those found among Facebook, but massively multiplayer titles are, in their very nature, social in the sense that you work and play together, create guilds, customize avatars, and communicate with one another within a virtual world. These are of the many reasons they become so addictive — and, combined with the use of virtual goods, and customized virtual spaces — why this particular title caught our attention.

Having launched with open beta status in North America in early September, Hello Kitty Online brings players into the soothing and vibrant world of the pop-icon. Users create an avatar, and in their sleep enter Hello Kitty’s world. Evidently, all her friends are going to sleep and she can’t wake them up, thus it’s up to you to save them.

This is a true-blue MMO, in the sense that it is impossible to get the entire picture without playing for a few weeks, but from a new user perspective it is a very love/hate relationship. When first entering the world, players are greeted with a wonderfully colorful style and soothing music that adds to the atmosphere of serenity. Within your first couple steps, you already have a quest and you are on your way.

All movement and basic interaction is fairly intuitive with left click moving and right click performing a contextual action (right clicking an enemy attacks it, for example, but right clicking a plant gathers it). Furthermore, the area map displays all non-player and player characters, making whoever you need to find fairly easy.

As players complete tasks, defeat enemies (nothing dies, they just go to sleep), and gather items, they level up. However, what is nice is that players can level up skills such as gathering or woodcutting in tandem with themselves. To clarify, this means if you don’t want to fight, you can still level up just fine, and later on, these gathering skills will help support various crafting professions such as carpentry or cooking.

The game, surprisingly, also has a lot more social elements than we had initially expected. As with all MMORPGs, players do have an avatar, but rather than being a knight or mage, players are just themselves, thus the clothes they wear are not only bonuses to stats, but a form of expression as well. Furthermore, these can not only be bought in game, but with the “Item Mall” as well as virtual goods.

From this Mall, players can use real money to buy virtual goods for their avatar. Moreover, goods are also available for housing. Yes, players can actually buy a house and decorate it as well, thus integrating the whole personal, virtual space concept (which is made even more gratifying by the fact that your friends can visit it). There are also sections for farms, pets, extra emoticons, and functional items, but at this time they are empty. In fact, the farming element is curious as well; almost like a HKO version of FarmVille, earning players potential profit for grown crops. The only real difference is that the decorations are part of the house, not the farm, and players don’t directly support each other (i.e. visiting each other’s farms to scare off crows). Unfortunately, all of these virtual goods from the Mall leads to one of many related complaints. One has no idea how to buy the virtual currency (Loyalty) needed to make a purchase, and the help button does nothing.

Before getting into complaints, there is also an integrated blog, email, and even videos that can be shared directly from the game. Unfortunately, the video doesn’t seem to work at the moment, but it does look interesting. Assuming the player can figure it out.

And now we come to the problems — although this is in open beta, so we expect the features to continue improving. For its audience, HKO is a wonderful free game… except for one devastating poison. Usability and instruction are absolutely, and utterly horrid. Aside from quests, a new user has NO idea what they are doing. For example, there is a quest that gives a level three item. If you are not level three, it tells you, but nowhere on the visible interface is there a place to see how far you are from that level. No, you have to hit the “S” key to pull that up. Never was the player told how to do that. Since when are users omniscient? There are a number of issues like this, beyond just hotkeys, where something is not explained and its up to the user to figure it out.

Even the Wiki that is provided is fairly useless. First of all, there is no link to it (but it is on the main page you downloaded the game from), and half the stuff one searches for comes up with nothing. Sure, the information is probably there, but not in a very intuitive spot. A more avid use of search tags would be quite warranted. However, it did help in one crucial area… actually setting up the game.

This is by far, the most god-awful set-up for beginning a game. If a user does not go to the Wiki, they will not be able to figure out what to do. Here is the break down. First, take about two hours to download the game and about 30 minutes to patch (no big deal, this is sort of expected). After that is done, it asks for login email and password. That’s it. Never does it ask you to register, yet you have to. So where do you go? Oh, you have to register with Aeria. Done. Still doesn’t work. Search the Wiki… “you have to synch your Aeria email with Hello Kitty Online to create a new email @hellokitty.com” How?! How on Earth is one supposed to know that?! Likely, most users are not going to take the extra step unless they really want to play the game. Users don’t like making extra effort if they don’t have to, they don’t like to read. That’s why tutorials in console games have to be designed as part of the game. Players don’t want to listen to or read a lesson. They want to PLAY.

Developers constantly overestimate new users because they are so close to the game, they cannot take a step back to see how intuitive it is or is not. Sadly, this is an all-to-common mistake, and in the case of HKO, something that should be fixed immediately if it is not already underway. The game is pretty good for a free-to-play title and has all the right elements for a successful social/casual MMO. However, if these usability issues are not fixed, then this game is going to lose players before they even get started.