Virtual Magic Kingdom
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The Virtual Magic Kingdom, also known simply as VMK, is a free massively multiplayer online game run by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online. It is a virtual representation of the Disneyland and Magic Kingdom theme parks, and contains areas and games which are based on real park attractions.[1]
A VMK player can chat with other players (though the vocabulary is restricted—see Dictionary below); customize the appearance of his character; explore the areas in each virtual "land"; visit other players' guest rooms and decorate his own; purchase and collect virtual pins, shirts, posters, and furniture and trade them with other players; make and play quests; play minigames (see Games below); and search for "Hidden Mickeys" (see Hidden Mickeys below). Items in the game have no "real-world" significance, and are purchased with in-game "credits" which have no connection to real money. The game's rules and staff make an effort to keep the game safe for children by preventing players from learning each other's real-life identities, but there are fan web sites which allow players to make contact with each other.[2]
The game is in operation daily between 10:00am and 1:00am EST (7:00am-10:00pm PST, 2:00pm-5:00am UTC).[3] The beta version opened publicly on May 23, 2005 with Main Street, Fantasyland, and Adventureland available to players. The "beta" designation was removed on June 27. The Tomorrowland game area was made available on October 5, and Frontierland opened on December 10. The rest of Tomorrowland opened on April 4, 2006.
The game engine uses Macromedia Shockwave. Virtual Magic Kingdom was created by Sulake Corporation, the company that also created the online multiplayer game Habbo Hotel, and it bears several similarities to that game.
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[edit] Creating an account
A new player begins by registering an account at "http://www.vmk.com/". The player then sets up a character (an avatar) and selects the character's gender and appearance (shirt, shoes, pants, hair, hat, face, and colors for skin and hair). The player also selects a "guest room", his or her own themed area which can later be decorated with furniture, posters, a boat canal, train tracks, game items, or other material. One room is provided for free, and additional rooms can be purchased later with in-game credits. The player can enter a few lines of text, known as a "signature", which will be displayed in the character's publicly-visible profile. The character is then given a few tradable items (mostly T-shirts), and is placed in the game.
A visitor to Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom can create a character at a special VMK kiosk. A character created in a park will start with additional credits and items, and its profile has a special "Born in the Park" icon in it. A park visitor can go on "Quests" in these two theme parks to win trading cards with codes on them which award in-game items. The purchase of certain items, such as a gold mouse ears hat or a collectible pin, will grant a collectible card with a code to obtain an item in the game.
The game's rules are posted on the VMK web site as "VMK Values". [1] Disney intends for the game to be "a safe, non-threatening environment" because many players are between the ages of eight and fourteen. The rules prohibit sexual or racist language, harassment, divulging personal information, and attempts to hack the system. Violations can result in a warning or a ban from two hours to ten years or more. Bans can lock out a single account, or any account from the player's IP address.
[edit] Environment
The Virtual Magic Kingdom consists of "rooms", each depicted in isometric projection, and each with a distinct theme. Each room has at least one exit which leads to another room.
No more than fifteen characters can occupy a room at any one time. If a player tries to enter someone's guest room which already contains fifteen characters, he will be put into a queue to wait to enter. The public rooms all have multiple "instances", named after compass directions (such as the "North-East-East" instance), and each instance can have up to fifteen characters in it. When moving around the public rooms, a character will be randomly placed in an instance of a room unless the player selects "Advanced Mode," in which he can select an instance for his character to enter.
During October, all the rooms along Main Street are decorated for Halloween. In 2005, the decorations were left up until December; in 2006, Christmas decor appeared immediately after Halloween.
[edit] Staff
The game is moderated by paid Disney staff, each of whom has a character in the game. Staff assist players by answering questions and calls for help. There are two kinds of staff members, Hosts and Moderators, each of whom wears a special outfit based on classic Disneyland Tourguide outfits. The profile of every staff member displays a badge of a Mickey head on an orange background.
Moderators can send warnings to misbehaving players, kick them out of rooms, or even ban them from the game. Moderators will contact the legal authorities if they suspect illegal activity in the game. VMK Moderators can be identified by their character names, which start with "VMK_".
Hosts plan and host games and events. The names of VMK Hosts start with "HOST_".
"Testers" test the items in the game. Their name prefix is "QA_", and they wear blue Mickey ears.
The game producer is "Yavn," and is the most prominent of the Disney team; he often shows off items long before they are publicly available. Yavn has a "Yavn Speaks" column on the official VMK web site.
[edit] Dictionary
In conversations, room descriptions, and other places where players are allowed to enter freeform text, players can only type words on the game's list of allowed words (which contains a total of about ten thousand word forms derived from about three thousand base words). If a player types a word not on the list, it flashes in red to warn him that it will not be accepted. If the player presses Return twice, the word appears to other players as "###". Some of the more notable words missing from the allowed list are numbers, names of states, and names of major cities. Typos are not accepted, and only the first letter of a word can be capitalized. These restrictions presumably exist to protect players by preventing them from divulging their ages or locations.
Attempts to work around the limited dictionary by using homophones or other awkward shorthand are called "dictionary dancing." For example, common substitutions for numbers are the use of "on", "too", "tree", "for", "ive", "fix", "even", "ate", "mine" and "tent" for the numbers one through ten.
Staff have stated that "players who dictionary dance will be banned for their safety and others'." Rooms in the game can be monitored by administrators, and other players can report inappropriate behavior to the admins; attempting to outwit the safeguards and reveal personal information or use profanity or other inappropriate language will result in being warned or banned from the game. However, action against players who dictionary dance has not been consistent, and staff members themselves have been observed dictionary dancing.
Previously, players had been able to use the names of other characters in conversation; thus, if a player existed with the name "Bubba", everyone could type the name "Bubba" and have it appear in chat. As a result, users created throwaway characters whose names were words they wanted to be able to use in chat, and many of these names were approved by the administrators. This was changed so that players may now only type the names of characters who are in the room with them, who had been in the room recently, or who are on their friends lists.
[edit] Games
The following minigames are available to play throughout the lands in the Virtual Magic Kingdom:
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Two teams of up to four players each sail ships and fire cannons to sink opponents. Winning the game awards credits. There are two different games, each with three difficulty levels: in "Ship Battle" the goal is to sink the other team's ships; players are awarded points depending on the the amount of "booty" they collect from shooting opponents' ships. In "Capture the Flag" (added in June 2006, during the minigame's revamp) the goal is to capture the opponent's flag and bring it back to one's own side. Ten victories on Level 1 grants a player the ability to play Level 2 games. After winning ten times on Level 2, access to Level 3 is granted. Every three victories, the player is rewarded with a bronze (Level 1), silver (Level 2), or gold (Level 3) key. This key works like a single-use magic pin, and can be used to open a chest in the Treasure Room which sometimes (but not always) awards a random prize.
- Castle Fireworks: Fireworks are launched into the sky and the player must click on each one with the correct symbol to detonate it. Pins are awarded based on a player's performance: Firework Level 1 Bronze for ending on the fourth level, Firework Level 2 Silver Rocket for playing all five levels, and Firework Level 3 Gold Spectacular for finishing with a score above 200,000 but not coming in first place. Finishing with a score of over 240,000 but not coming in first place awards a Fireworks magic pin; the pin is also awarded after winning the game a few times.
- Jungle Cruise Photo Safari: The player pilots a ship and takes photos of animals while avoiding obstacles. Credits are awarded for playing the game. Scoring in the daily top ten high scores provides a link to a PDF coupon that can be printed and redeemed in the real Disney parks for an Explorer's Tent guest room.
- Street Party Music Game: A player can sequence music loops into a song for characters to dance to. Credits are awarded for editing songs and for playing them.
- The Haunted Mansion Game: The Purple team and the Green team, with up to four players each, compete to capture ghosts in the Haunted Mansion. A player can capture ghosts of his color (which run from him), but if touched by a ghost of the opposite color (which pursue him) he temporarily becomes a ghost himself. Players are awarded five credits for each captured ghost, and forty credits for being on the team which captures more ghosts. This game was introduced in late 2005, shortly after Frontierland opened.
The following minigames are available to play in the Tomorrowland Arcade:
- Airlock Escape: A puzzle game with some similarity to ChuChu Rocket!; successful completion of all fifteen levels will award a Deep Sea Diving Boots, Deep Sea Diving Jacket, and Deep Sea Diving Trousers.
- Blast in Space: An action game similar to Asteroids; the player pilots a spaceship to shoot rocks, and a player receives awards for passing all sixteen levels.
- Hyperspace Mountain: An action game where the player collects six "modules" throughout nine sectors. Obtaining all six modules wins rewards.
[edit] Events
The Virtual Magic Kingdom occasionally holds special events at which prizes are given out. Some examples have been:
Parade and scavenger hunt: During VMK's public beta testing phase, an event was held where players were told to gather on Main Street and "parade" along its length. Some parade "leaders" were awarded the Dancing Inferno magic pin. Then a few staff members "hid" themselves in some rooms in the game, and the first people to find each of them were awarded prizes.
Room decorating event: Players were told to decorate their rooms to be judged for prizes. For a Celebration theme, players commemorated Disneyland's 50th anniversary. For a Space theme, players offered an interpretation of what "space" meant to them. Prizes were also given for answering trivia questions.
Haunted Maze event: During October 2005, an easy maze, a medium maze, and a difficult maze were available for players to find their way through. Successfully completing the maze would award a prize. However, the event was plagued by server problems, resulting in queues of half an hour or more to get into the mazes, and some players were not able to enter the mazes at all or were bumped offline in the middle of them.
Gift-giving: In December 2005, a player could spend 500 credits to purchase a mystery gift which was given (in the game) to someone of his or her choosing on December 24. The gift turned out to be a green holiday wreath.
Yeti Quest: In February 2006, players could visit designated rooms to find photos; by stringing together the first letter of each pictured item, a player could spell the location where the Yeti was hiding, and submit his answer for prizes. The answer was "Injun Joe's Cave", and everyone who sent in a correct answer won a snow carpet.
Ride-A-Thons: VMK staff occasionally host "Ride-A-Thons", in which they prepare rides for players to enjoy. When a player reaches the end of a ride, he is given a ride piece with which to create his own ride. Several rides are usually running at the same time to handle capacity.
Beginning in autumn 2005, special items and games have been based on a different theme each month.
- October 2005: Main Street was decorated for Halloween, and several new costumes were made available for purchase in the game.
- November: Thanksgiving games such as "Turkey Bowling" were held by hosts.
- December: Items themed to Christmas and Hanukkah were available.
- January 2006: To commemorate the opening of the Monsters, Inc. ride (Monster's Inc.: Mike and Sulley to the Rescue!) at Disney's California Adventure, games were monster-themed and awarded teleporter doors.
- February: To commemorate the opening of Expedition Everest at Disney's Animal Kingdom, train tracks and other ride-themed items were available.
- March: Villain-themed pins and games were available.
- April: With the opening of the new Tomorrowland area, Quest Month let players compete in a variety of in-game quests to win magic pins and other prizes.
- May: A baseball field guest room was made available, as were a baseball uniform for boys and a cheerleader outfit for girls.
- June: A new Pirates of the Caribbean game awarded items themed to the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and new Pirates minigames were introduced.
- July: Water slide items, based on Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon, are available.
- August: Water slide ride pieces were made available (along with a water slide ride contest).
- September: Games and items themed to the 1982 film Tron were made available. The VMK web site received a facelift.
- October: The Halloween decorations reappeared on Main Street, and old and new costume items were made available.
- November: Space Mountain ride pieces were made available. Main Street was decorated for Christmas. Foorball uniforms and a football stadium room were made available.
[edit] In-park quests
Several in-park "quests" are currently available at Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom. (The specific questions in the quests are different in each park.)
A location at the Magic Kingdom (on Main Street, U.S.A.) or at Disneyland (in Tomorrowland at Innoventions) provides quest handouts containing multiple-choice questions for the Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Frontierland quests. A player explores the park to find answers, then returns to his starting point so his answers can be checked and prizes can be awarded. The questions require the player to spot details in the park, such as counting the number of keys on the keyring being held by the dog in Pirates of the Caribbean. Upon completing these quests, the player is awarded prize cards (with codes for in-game items) depending on what answers he or she got right, as well as a glow-in-the-dark wristband for getting all correct answers in any one quest. Each prize card has one single-use code printed on it; entering this code into the game will grant the designated prize to the player.
A Tomorrowland quest is available online to print out and bring to a park, and is still being accepted despite stating that it is only valid through December 31, 2005. A holiday quest for each park was available during the 2006 holiday season, and ended on January 2, 2006. From April through September 2006, a Thrill Seekers Quest is available at the Magic Kingdom, and a 50th Celebration quest is available at Disneyland. A High School Musical quest, based on the made-for-TV movie, was made available on May 23, 2006. [2]
Until December 2005, a player who completed quests successfully were eligible to go on the VMK Insider Tour, which included the Haunted Mansion quest, the Pirates of the Caribbean quest, and the opportunity to win more prizes. Since March 2006, however, a new prize is being given at Disneyland to guests completing all four quests. Now guests completing the quests may receive a FastPass for two different attractions.
A player must wait ninety days before being awarded any particular prize (including the wristband) again.
Merchandise cards are given with the purchase of various items around the theme parks. The locations are different for Disneyland than they are for the Magic Kingdom. One of the six cards cannot be obtained from Disneyland; another cannot be obtained from the Magic Kingdom.
[edit] VMK Quests
There are a few public quests in the game itself, as well as quests created by players. These in-game quests involve a series of tasks for a player, such as finding a specific room or an item in the room, changing one's outfit, saying a specific word, or winning a certain number of points in a minigame. Successful completion of a VMK Quest will usually award a prize. Each character can only win each VMK Quest once.
[edit] Items that can belong to a character
Players can customize their characters' appearance and rooms.
A few of the game's testers and developers are active in the game; they often show off pins, clothing, and rooms that are not yet publicly available.
[edit] Badges
Badges are icons that appear at the top of a player's information window visible to other players. Badges cannot be traded.
- Born In Park: given to a character created at Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom.
- VIP: given via a prize card's code; the card is given after completing the in-park quests (see Quests above) to become eligible for the special park tour. (Note that this is different from the VIP pin, which is given the second time a player wins a Best Guest Room or Best Game Room award.)
- Here from Day 1: given to a character created prior to June 27, 2005.
- VMK Staff: paid employees who help safeguard players and/or host VMK games and events; see Staff above.
- Community Leader: volunteers who help with the game; their names begin with "CL_".
[edit] Pins
A character can "wear" up to fifteen pins so that other players can see them in his profile.
"Magic pins" can also be worn. When activated (from the magic wand icon at the bottom of the screen, or by typing the pin's magic word), they display a visual effect. Each effect has a duration of only a few seconds and must be allowed to "recharge" for a minute or so before another use. If a player has two or more of the same kind of magic pin, they can be combined for a longer effect and shorter delay between uses. There are also single-use magic pins which will disappear after being used once (or after a specific "expiration date").
Some of the more common magic pins are:
- Buried In Treasure ("BlingBling!"): makes the character appear to become buried in gold coins.
- Cursed Storm ("BoomCrash!"): makes the character spin around in a cyclone.
- Pirate Costume ("YohoYoho!"): makes the character appear to be dressed as a pirate.
- Fireworks magic ("Rocket!"): makes fireworks shower over the character's head. To obtain it, get a score of over 240,000 in the Castle Fireworks game, but do not come in first place.
- Teleportation magic ("Jump!"): relocates the character elsewhere in the room. The player may select any destination that's reachable by walking. To obtain it, complete the in-park Tomorrowland quest.
[edit] Clothing
Occasionally, the VMK shops sell special clothing items (or entire costumes). Some of these can only be purchased during a specific weekend. These items are usually expensive; due to this and their limited availability, they soon become valuable items in trading. Princess dresses and cheerleader outfits can not be purchased by boy characters, though boys can purchase and wear princess hats (to the great amusement of some players). So far, the only clothing not available to girls has been the blue baseball uniform and the Wildcats sweatsuit.
Full costumes have included a spacesuit, princess dresses with accompanying tiara, Haunted Mansion suits with tophat, an Expedition Everest hiking outfit with snowshoes, a baseball outfit, a cheerleader outfit, High School Musical Wildcats sweats, a red dress with high heels, superhero costumes, and a Herbie racing suit.
Costume items have included Mickey ears, baseball caps, a Sorcerer Mickey hat, a musketeer hat, a green Peter Pan hat, a Stitch hat, and a pirate hat with an eyepatch.
[edit] Guest rooms
When a player first creates his character in the game, he is given one free "guest room" which he can name and decorate with items. He is allowed to select the style of his free room from four available choices. If the player is creating his character in a park, then he is given another four rooms (one of each available choice) as a bonus. Several other kinds of rooms are available; a player can purchase them in the game, obtain them from quest cards, or win them from minigames.
The shops sell a wide variety of items, such as posters, couches, water fountains, and rugs, which can be used to decorate guest rooms. Some of these items are only sold for a limited time, and some can only be obtained as quest prizes. Pictures taken with the in-game camera can be hung on guest room walls or put into a photo book for public view. Players can also create games in their rooms (making sure to follow VMK guidelines of appropriateness), and award some of their own items to players. VMK staff award a Best Guest Room Award or Best Game Room Award pin to the owner of a guest room chosen to be superlative in originality and creativity. Recently, several players have earned the Best Guest Room or Best Game Room award more than once; the VMK staff now awards the VIP pin to these outstanding players.
A player can set his guest rooms so that only people on his or her friends list may enter.
[edit] Hidden Mickeys
There are fifty Hidden Mickeys in the game, appearing as mouse-eared logos embossed onto scenery in rooms. Hunting for Hidden Mickeys can be a difficult task, as they are faint and rather difficult to see, and it can take time to earn enough credits to buy film. Almost every room has at least one, and some contain two.
To begin the Hidden Mickey hunt, a player can visit VMK Central and double-click on the camera sign to buy a camera and 3 film for 200 credits. Additional packs of 5 film are another 200 credits each. When the player finds a Hidden Mickey, he or she can photograph it by clicking the camera icon at the bottom of the game window. Credits and pins are awarded after finding certain numbers of Hidden Mickeys (a Bronze Mickey pin for finding ten, a Silver Mortimer pin for finding thirty, and a Gold Oswald pin and 500 credits for finding all fifty). Completing this hunt awards a printable PDF coupon with a code for the Gold Design set of items, which can be obtained by redeeming the coupon at Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom.
The locations of the Hidden Mickeys were changed on December 12, 2005. The new hunt is called "Hidden Mickey Quest Part II", and the new prize pins have "Part II" appended to their names.
[edit] Disney Characters
A player is given 40 credits and a pin upon first visiting each of these non-player characters (NPCs) by double-clicking on him or her. Another 20 credits are given each time the player revisits the same Disney Character, as long as at least twelve hours have passed since the last payout.
- Captain Blackheart (in Pirate Treehouse)
- Esmeralda the Fortuneteller (in Emporium)
- Maleficent the Dragon (in Dungeon)
- Shrunken Ned (in Shrunken Ned's Shop)
- The Yeti (in Matterhorn)
The Hitchhiking Ghosts award credits when visited, but no pin.
- Phineas the Hitchhiking Ghost (in Haunted Mansion Stretching Room)
- Ezra the Hitchhiking Ghost (in Haunted Mansion Ballroom)
- Gus the Hitchhiking Ghost (in Haunted Mansion Attic)
As a result of having "won" the Voting Poll event (see Events above), the Dragon gave out 100 credits per visit from November 14 through 27, 2005, instead of the usual 20 credits. During the Yeti Quest event, the characters each gave higher credit awards than usual.
Mickey Mouse's shoes can be seen beneath the curtain in the Golden Horseshoe Mercantile, and Donald Duck occasionally walks past a window above the Main Street Central Plaza, but no award is given for finding them.
"Push the Trashcan" sometimes appears in the game. Based on the roving, wisecracking trash can seen in Disney theme parks (and named after the word PUSH on its trash door), Push visits guest rooms and interacts with players.
[edit] Codes
A player can enter codes to obtain items and credits. Each code consists of sixteen letters and/or numbers. They are provided on cards and wristbands given as prizes for quests at Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom and in certain issues of Disney Adventure Magazine. They were also previously available in specially-marked boxes of Kellogg's cereal (Apple Jacks, Cinnamon Krunchers, Froot Loops, and Rice Krispies).
There are two kinds of codes. Single-use codes are unique and are only valid for one use by a single player; these are given on prize cards. Multi-use codes are good for one use by any player; the same code is provided in each cereal box, for example. (A character can not use a multi-use code more than once. If a player buys three boxes of cereal and the same code appears in all three, that code can still only be used once.)
There is a Kellogg's "Conquer the Sea" game online [3] which will dispense one single-use code to a player. This code will award a few pirate-themed prizes including the Skull Rock room.
An online "Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue" game [4], no longer available, awarded codes for a pair of pink Monsters, Inc. teleporter doors.
"Yeti Vision: The Everest Quest" [5] awards prizes based on Expedition Everest.
"The Adventure of Narnia" [6] awards prizes based on the 2005 Disney film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" [7] awards prizes based on the 2006 Disney film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Magic pins acquired through codes may not be traded to other characters, presumably to avoid letting players create new characters for the sole purpose of amassing magic pins.
[edit] Acquiring credits
A player can earn credits by visiting the Disney Characters (see Disney Characters above), by playing the Fireworks, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, or Haunted Mansion games, or by remixing and playing songs in Music Mix.
Another popular way to amass credits is called "Nedding". It consists of playing the Shrunken Ned's Jungle Cruise game but trying to end the game as quickly as possible by crashing repeatedly and running out of fuel. Each time the game is played it awards 20 credits, so the credits that can be gotten from this game are limited only by the length of time someone wants to put into it.
Accounts used specifically for getting credits and items, known in other games as multis, are called "mules". Since the game lets a player create new accounts freely, players create mules (named after the beast of burden) to enter multi-use codes and collect credits by visiting Disney Characters. Players can buy items with a mule's credits, and then trade these items from the mules to their main characters. Players who use mules are said to be "muling", and in the game mules are called "done keys" (donkeys) due to the limited vocabulary. On the VMK web site, Yavn has expressed his dislike of mules and his intention to ban accounts of people with an "unbelievable" number of accounts (such as fifty for a single household) which could be mistaken as being mules. [4]
Purchased items can be "sold back" for 20% of their purchase price.
[edit] Community
Players whose characters meet in the same room at the same time can become "friends": one issues an invitation to the other, and if the other accepts, then each player will always be able to see if the other is online and in what game location, and will be able to jump instantly to the other character's location (unless blocked by a 'friends only' flag on the room or if the friend's character is within a game, or if it is a 'special entrance' room such as the exit from the Typhoon Lagoon to Waterpark Pool). Either player can remove someone from his friends list at any time. Outside of friends, there is no way within the game to find out whether a particular other character is online or in what room.
Disney prohibits sharing personal information in the game (and its limited dictionary also adds a technical obstacle to this). Disney's stated intent is to protect the safety and privacy of its members, but this also prevents members from having a legitimate way of reaching each other outside the game. Members of some Disney internet discussion forums get around this by putting certain phrases in their public signatures, a short bit of text which is visible to any other player who clicks on the character, to indicate a discussion board through which they can be reached.
[edit] Trading and scamming
Players can trade pins and room furnishings. One player clicks on someone's character to show an info window, then clicks 'Trade'. The other player will be asked if he wants to trade, and if he does, both players will see a trading window. Each player can double-click on his items to place them in the "offer" area, and once both players are satisfied, they each click an "accept" checkbox and that completes the trade. (Any change to either person's offer will clear both "accept" checkboxes and require both players to accept again.)
Some clothing items are only available for boys or girls, and cannot be traded to the other gender. For example, a girl can not trade her princess outfit to a boy.
Some players try to take advantage of the trading window to scam other players. What usually happens is that a scammer will offer a valuable item for trade, he will ask someone else to put lots of good items into the offer area, and then he will quickly withdraw his valuable item and replace it with a cheap item and click "accept", hoping the other person won't notice the switch. A scammer can be reported by clicking the "Help" button at the bottom of the VMK window then clicking the "Call for Help" tab, but VMK staff does not appear to be often successful at returning lost items. As of October 5, trading was altered slightly so that after both users accept, they are shown an unchangeable summary of the items to be traded and they are asked to accept again, to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Another scam involves teleporters; a scammer will trade a pair of teleporters which appear to be identical but are not "matched" and therefore won't work together (using either might send a character someplace unintended, or might not function at all). This scam has become less common since the game was changed to highlight both teleporters in a matched set when one is selected, so that a person can see if a pair is not matched.
Some scammers offer to provide codes in return for items. Since codes cannot be traded or communicated in the game, these scammers will usually disappear (without providing any codes) after being given the items for which they asked, or else they'll communicate with their target outside the game and provide codes which have already been used and can no longer be redeemed.
Scammers often beg players to let them "try on" rare pins or costume items; once the items are given to them, they disappear and drop the donor from their friends list so that the donor can no longer find the scammer.
[edit] Criticisms
Under some circumstances, the game has shown a tendency to drop connections; a player will see a message saying that the VMK has crashed and asking the player to log on again. This seems to especially be triggered by being in a room with a lot of animation going on, such as dancing characters and flickering candles, and seems to happen even more so when there are an especially large number of people in the game. According to the newsletter published on October 9th, the disconnection "bug" has been patched and sudden disconnects will be rare. [5]
The limit of no more than fifteen people being in a room at once, as well as the aforementioned problem with players being disconnected, often causes frustration during special events. When an event is bottlenecked by being dependent on a single room, long lines ensue. Previously there could be lines of several hundred people and wait times of over an hour. In February 2006 this was changed so that lines waiting to enter a room could be no longer than 50 people long; anyone else trying to join a line that long is told to come back later.
The VMK rules seem to be enforced unevenly. Staff has suddenly imposed ten-year bans on players without warning for seemingly minor infractions, such as "dictionary dancing" (see Dictionary above) or by dressing up as a "future staff member" for Halloween, whereas other violations (such as creatively circumventing the dictionary for suggestive language or obscenities) seem to go without punishment. Players who have declined to give away rare items have been reported to staff and subsequently banned without investigation.
Staff typically show no interest in some issues such as scams and problems with host games; they tell players to use the web site to send feedback. The "Contact Us" link on the VMK web site has been nicknamed "the black hole". Responses are very rare, and are usually form letters irrelevant to the issues to which they're responding. Players who apply to become community leaders might receive an automated reply telling them that applications are no longer being accepted, or they might not receive any response to their questionnaires for weeks or months, if at all.
Though the game's limited vocabulary rules out many words of affection (like love and kiss), many players state in their signatures that they are "not taken" and they ask others "are you taken?", and then they form relationships by saying that they are "taken by" a particular person. However, players are finding other ways to say words of affection, such as 'key.is' for kiss and 'glove' for love Other players refer to themselves as "bay be" (baby) and roleplay as an infant or toddler looking for a "mummy" (mommy) or "duh duh" (daddy). This disturbs some players, especially as Disney does not allow players to reveal their ages and therefore the relationship might actually be between an adult player and a youth.
[edit] References
- ^ Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom: About VMK. Retrieved October 29, 2006.
- ^ Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom: For Parents. Retrieved October 29, 2006.
- ^ Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom: Top FAQs. Retrieved October 29, 2006.
- ^ "Newsletter 10/18", VMK Forums, retrieved October 29, 2006.
- ^ "Newsletter 10/9", VMK Forums, retrieved October 29, 2006.
