Orc Chasm.

Gesundheit.

Bless you for the Altar of Literacy, my child!

i no rite?!?

Since it is "ask me anything" how do you open a sunken chest? :)

You crack the sternum and then bend back the ribs. Wear an apron.

I ♣ seals!

I ♠ my cat!

Will there ever be any sort of second hand pawn show where we can spend accumulated unusable currency like crimbo scrip, and aol disks and the like?

Heh, that's not a bad idea. Now, how to steal it and pass it off as my own . . .

Now we know you're a true Redditor.

I'll just add something little to the idea and put [FIXED] next to it when we implement it.

Best advice for an older player looking to get back into the game? There seems to be so much new things that its a little overwhelming.

Ooo! I know this one! We have a reset button now. You can start all over again from Valhalla and explore!

I'd say the best approach is just to not worry about playing optimally or seeing everything at first, and just ease into it and explore organically. Y'know, like a lover.

[deleted]

Anything with carbon in it's organic. :-D

I have to say KoL is my favorite game of all time and probably the longest I've stayed with one at nearly 8 years.

What was your favorite experience in over 9 years of working on KoL?

Yo, I'm'a let you finish, but Pilotwings 64 is the greatest game of all time! Of all time.

I think my best experience was at KoL Con IV. I stood on a stage and looked down at a sea of people ages 18 through maybe 65, all there because of our game, and I introduced MC Frontalot, who played a concert at our show. That was amazeballs.

What is your favorite joke in-game?

It's still one of Jick's jokes, and I love it. The description for the Skullbat: "This is a bat with a skull instead of a body. Most bats have a skull in addition to their bodies, but, y'know." Classic Jick.

Wait. If a normal bat has a skull AND a body, but this bat has a skull INSTEAD of a body, wouldn't this bat be composed of exactly two skulls and no body?

Well, color me Conspiracy Keanu.

How many undiscovered trophies are there right now?

There are about five, if I'm not mistaken.

But the biggest undiscovered trophy . . .

is love.

This AMA has inspired me to start playing again (for like the 5th time).

Where'd the classes and their subsequent names come from? Hilarity ensues from the moment of character creation in the Kingdom of Loathing.

Those came straight out of Jick's head. Funny thing: his least favorite one, the one he thought was barely a joke and he just put in because he couldn't think of anything else, is the most awesome one: Sauceror.

Order of the Stick had a reference to KoL a few strips back ("Took a Level in Sauceror"). I just wanted to mention that somewhere.

Yeah, we were trying to figure if they knew of us or just hit the same pun.

I'll bet that people keep coming up to that dude at Cons and saying, "hey, this game is all stick people like your comics!" We get the same thing from XKCD fans. Which is okay, because XKCD fans are good people.

It seems like all of the ultra rares are from the very old areas of the game. Are there any plans to roll out new ultra rares for some of the newer areas? Will our familiars ever become aware that they have a torso?

Yeah, every time we talk about adding new ultra rares, members of our dev team break down in uncontrollable weeping, because they're afraid it'll alter the drop rates for all of the other ones. We try telling 'em we've already altered the rates, and to pray we do not alter them further, but that doesn't help.

I would SO love to do multiple equip slots for familiars. Just gotta figure out extra or enhanced functionality for 150+ familiars and we're golden!

Jick seems to imply you came up with ascension. How did you ever think to do that?

One night at a bar we were drinking beers (Anderson's 5th Estate in Scottsdale used to have quarter beer nights) and talking about the game. And I said, "Y'know, when you're done, you ought to be able to start again and make it harder, y'know, like in Mario Brothers when the Goombas turn into Buzzy Beetles. And maybe you can pick not to drink, or not eat, or both, and you can take a skill with you so you can mix classes."

Since I'm not a huge game (Mario World and Pilotwings 64 are still my favorites), I wasn't familiar with the concept of "Game Plus One," so I re-invented it, like so many other wheels I've re-invented doing this project :-).

TV Tropes called that sort of thing a New Game Plus.

See, that's how unfamiliar I was with the concept :-D.

Thanks for helping me meet my current fiancee, bro!

Woo! Another one on the plus side of the ledger!

What are the keys to the longtime success of Kingdom of Loathing?

20% having an interesting game with good writing and replayability.

20% continuous revamps, updates, world events.

20% trying to be nice so people will like us and want to give us money.

40% awesome, smart, and let's face it, devastatingly sexually attractive playerbase.

Wait, what? Those actually add up to 100%! I'm confused.

I wasn't in the mood to give 110%. Also, it's not scientifically possible.

I was a lapsed player until I received a groovy "Please give us another chance" email. You wrote that, didn't you? And how did you embed enough mind-control phrases in it to make me start playing again?

I wrote it, yeah. No mind control, baby. . .I just spoke from the heart.

I'm still asking Jick for the funds to go to all ex-players' houses and stand outside holding a boom box over my head.

And that boom box will be playing "Particle Man." I think you'll know what it means.

How does it feel knowing that a lot of your users (myself included) started when we were fairly young. In our early to mid teens, and still play to this day? How do you feel knowing you (and the others) have shaped our sense of humor and in some ways changed how we are as people?

I think that if we've managed to find some smart, funny nerds and showed them that sometimes smart, funny nerds get to have awesome lives, then it's all good.

The geeks shall inherit the earth, y'all.

creates an account just so he can comment

I've been playing since I was 14, and here I am at 22. Lots of love for this game and all that you guys do for us players.

Anywho, ever since I saw someone pull off a 2 day HC ascension, I thought "Oh my. KoL might be getting a revamp soon." Any chance of NS14 or NS15? Or has that idea been shut down for good?

Any other ideas to "slow the players down"? Slowing us down might give you more latitude in creating shiny IotMs. ;)

NS15 is most definitely dead. We're focusing on giving those Speedy McSpeedersons other challenges they can opt into, like Bad Moon and Bees Hate You and whatnot, and are less concerned about the vanilla game getting too fast.

Of course, now as always, we are ever dedicated to making hardcore easier.

I've never heard of your game, but I'm interested. Care to convince me?

It's a game that has been called "The Amish World of Warcraft," and "A boring and pointless waste of time." It has really funny text instead of textured polygons. It looks simple and it's fun to play casually, but it has hidden depths for advanced players.

It has the best group of people you will ever meet playing it.

It has limited turns per day so it won't take over your life unless you really want it to.

Like all the best intoxicating drugs, the first one's free.

PvP... Are there any plans for a PvP revamp? Do you know?

There are! There are continuing plans for a PvP revamp. It's something Jick and CDMoyer (our other coder) work on in brief fits of inspiration, followed by long months of despair. It's the most bipolar of our projects.

Do you really think everyone is going to read your well typed answers or are they just going to ignore them and click the next adventure link?

I hope that someone has written a Mafia script for this AMA that allows you to upvote a representative sample of my responses, thus saving you the time reading them.

There's so many cultural references in KoL; more than I'm sure any single player would know. So, how the hell do you come up with so bloody many? Do players send in requests for references? Or is your and Jick's idea or "market research" just watching old TV ;-)?

We had already amassed quite the storehouse of useless pop culture knowledge before we started KoL.

I can never remember my mom's birthday, but I remember all the lyrics to Ice, Ice Baby and every line of Pulp Fiction. I wouldn't say it's a blessing...

The challenge is to keep consuming pop culture with a house and toddler to take care of, so the content doesn't stagnate around 2004 or so. I mean, there's always going to be so much more stuff from 1995 or so, because that's when we were teenagers, and when culture reached its apex.

On that note - and excuse my naivety, as I haven't played the game - was the name derived from Hunter S. Thompson books? Kingdom of Fear and Fear and Loathing?

The weird thing is, it totally wasn't. Jick just created the directory for the game and randomly called it "Loathing" on the remote server, and the rest is history.

I always loved this game, many hours in school were spent with a Pastamancer instead of learning things. Thank you for that.

Now, what operating system do you use?

I'd like to think that you learned more important things, like how to use pasta as a weapon. That's gonna be more impressive in a job interview.

Jick and I are Windows users, because we grew up with it and we fear and hate change and hassle. Hotstuff is a Mac guy, because he's cooler than we are. None of us use Linux, because none of us are very good at the computer.

First off, thanks for making and continuing to support KoL for all this time. It's a great fun game.

That being said, are there any other projects that you're working on right now that aren't KoL related?

Thanks for playing KoL all this time, or even just thinking about us every now and again.

The comic is as close to a non-KoL related project as I have right now. It's in a similar universe, but the story-telling is so very different, and figuring out what from the game works in that form has been a fantastic challenge.

What is the largest animal you can fight and win?

I'm not an animal fighter; I'm an animal lover.

Uh, in a platonic way, I mean. No matter how badly that dolphin seems to want it.

Thank you.

That website single-handedly made me a LOT of friends online and offline.

Me, too. I think we're still ahead for number of marriages caused versus number of divorces.

I love you.

... mom?

When can I have my head back?

Are you implying you gave me head?

Guy made of bees.

Guy made of bees.

GUY MADE OF BEES.

Buzz Buzz

Any clues you can give us regarding the new challenge path coming out in a few days?

It'll provide the most different KoL experience of all the challenge paths so far. Really cool stuff in there, but what excites me more is the groundwork for future paths.

Does 'Blessing of the RNG' actually do anything?

It does :-).

On a related note, what does Resolution: Be Luckier do?

That's a wooden shoe question.

Wooden shoe like to know. :-D.

Are you at all worried that in the future that you'll run out of IoTM ideas? I understand that your only source of income comes from donations for Mr. As.

I would say that we're worried in the present and the past that we'll run out of IotM ideas. But somehow, we never do. Part of the challenge is to continue expanding the game so we'll have new places to make the IotM's relevant.

What has been your favorite event (BoneStar, Crimbo, etc.) so far, and why?

The Grey Plague. Such a simple and cool idea Jick had, to simulate passing a plague among the users (in a less concrete way than we do at our Cons), and what fun people had figuring it out! I would love to do something like that again.

I also love the 12 Days of Crimbo with the Crimborg, but that's self-love.

Just wanted to say thanks for creating a great game. It got me through hours of a boring job a couple years ago.. like 12 hours at a time. I log in once in a while now and have to rejoin my clan every time haha. Still want to make it to one of your conventions.

Thanks again!

Right on! Thanks for playing. Writing this game got me through hours of a boring job when it started, too.

Can you remove MMG from the game? Kthxbye.

I wish we could. But when we didn't have it, we had someone running a bot that did the same thing, and it had the same problems and some additional ones as the current MMG does.

Not having an MMG in-game made it easy for scammers to run fake MMGs and fleece people, too. So we made something that was legit, and it turns out it's 2 legit 2 quit. We don't necessarily like it, but it's the hero that we need right now.

Are there any insights you can give on how UR adventures work? Been playing close to 5 years on an almost daily basis (a few breaks here and there) and not even a sniff of one!

It's impossible to predict it because they are applied globally, not individually. Jick prides himself on the fact that you can't get one on purpose.

If i send you ten GBP through the post, can I get a british Mr. A?

How do you get to be a Dev?

Do you like the level of automation that you can get in the game ,through the various scripts and mafia things?

1. Nah, we thought about doing a Mr. Eh, Wot? but decided that joke's only funny once. But you do have the advantage of only having to send in 5 GBP to get a Mr. A, right?

2. We haven't added anyone in a while, but the best way is still to play the game, have good thoughts about how to improve it, and express those thoughts in a reasonable way in the forums.

3. I like it because it keeps people interested and playing. I mean, I get it -- once you've seen my joke ten times, it's not funny anymore, so it becomes a numbers game, and that's okay.

How did the staff react when the news mentioned that some guy killed and ate his neighbor, and one of his hobbys was KoL?

He didn't eat her; he was just about to eat her when he got caught. So, y'know, that's so much better.

It was weird. I mean, we're a big community, so we were bound to have a crazy in there somewhere, but never expected it to really happen.

CNN mentioned us in their article, and a reporter called Jick for comment. But then the reporter actually looked at the game, and realized despite the LOATHING in the name, it wasn't scary enough to warrant inclusion.

What class should I play? I want to start up again.

I like playing Seal Clubbers and Saucerors, because I like dealing massive amounts of damage and not messing with the subtleties of the combat dance. I like my combat like I like my women: fast and easy.

What do you think of KolMafia and bots interacting with the game in general? I haven't logged in for ages, but I used it fairly heavily towards the end of my last bout of playing.

Also, you guys are fantastic. Really fantastic. And the whole KoL community are just lovely.

Yeah, bots are cool, so long as they don't hit the servers too hard. I like anything that lets you customize your experience without us doing any work :-).

And ActiveChat is waaaaay the fuck better than regular native KoL Chat.

Hey, I've been playing for over 7 years now (even ask my coffee pixie) and I love the game. I am currently 105 lucre into getting olfaction (what a pain) and my question is:

Do existential torment and bonus luck do anything?

They do do something. Heh, doo-doo.

Do you think you've improved as a writer down the years?

I . . . hope so?

Every writer hates looking at stuff they wrote years ago, but I don't know if it's because we get better, or we just are more in love with the new stuff.

I hope I''m finding a better balance of references/jokes and actual new material.

When will we finally be able to play Word Realms?

This year. Definitely this year.

Oh sweet Jesus let it be this year.

What are your top five favourite video games of all time?

This is going to be really embarrassing. Let's see...

1. Super Mario Galaxy
2. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
3. Portal (and Portal 2, mashed together)
4. Super Mario World
5. Pilotwings 64. I can't explain it, but man do I love that game.

Why does the BHH have such a limited selection of wares. It seems like a great way for less wealthy players to acquire nice rewards, much like the HC and BM rewards. Will there ever be any new items, skills, or familiars added to his store?

Yes, someday.

Some sweet day.

It's one of those things we really, really want to do but can never find time to do. It's one of the many "going to the gym and working out three days a week" of KoL.

Is there any plan to expand the kingdom in the near future?

Yes indeed. Expansion will be mostly through challenge paths and new non-ascension areas, though, rather than required quests. We've learned our lesson.

Just wanted to say thanks for helping to create a game that has captured my interest for going on 7 years now. Also loved the joke I got in my comic book!

Aw, thanks! What was the joke? I was high on cough syrup and lack of sleep when I wrote most of those, so I don't remember 'em.

If not writing the witty jokes for KoL we all love, what is it you'd be doing?

Probably working a shitty desk job or trying to teach a high school English class, while still writing the occasional short story.

Ever consider adapting elements of the game in some sort of non-leaderboard way to make obsessive people like me able to handle the game? Such as non-functional plush versions of familiars, or hallucinations where you can experience past events but not take rewards out (or otherwise non-functional cosmetic versions of those rewards), tarnished versions of removed trophies, and the like?

This is the second time that's come up, and I think it's a really interesting idea. Maybe Jick and I should talk about it on Monday's show.

Let's talk about NS13, I noticed a lot of negative comments about it on here. What do you think was so polarizing about NS13 that made so many people leave, and what was it they loved so much about NS11 that is now gone for them, so much to the point they would quit?

I mean, it was change, man. Everybody hates change. No matter how good the changes end up being in the long run, nobody likes going, "hey! I was using that shit and now that shit's all different! What the FUCK!?"

I do think that a lot of people stayed on and spent some time with the new system, and they gave us good feedback we could use to tweak some things, and the world kept a-spinnin'.

It's a tough balance. We have to give the players what we think they need, not what they want, and sometimes we have to straight up give them what WE want instead, and say, "y'know, you've enjoyed our shit thus far, try this."

[deleted]

Aw, dude, sorry to hear it. We did stop doing that 30 day thing eventually, since it just led to sad stories like "I so WANT to play your game, but now I CAN'T. Thanks, asshole." You should come back by! Start fresh!

KoL employs roughly seven dudes at solidly middle-class salaries. It pays my mortgage on a modest house, my bills, and my bad-ass chick magnet ride (2008 Toyota Prius). So we're comfy, but we're not doing lines of coke off of solid gold strippers.

Heya Skully! If you pioneered your own game from scratch, what would it look like? Would you let Jick work on it? ;)

I had an idea for a kind of social MMO where you'd level up by playing mini-games. It had a Universal Monsters theme, and a six-trait character tree. You'd level up with mini-games, then fight each other, and you'd have a home you could decorate, and characters you could customize.

So basically a lot of casual games wrapped in a candy shell, all OMGKAWAAAAAIIII. But I have none of the skills to make it happen (and neither does Jick, really -- it's just not in our wheelhouses) so it's Forever Alone.

Are there any world events in the works, or can I ascend?

You should be safe to ascend, unless you want to wait until Tuesday when the new challenge path rolls out.

Only question I can come up with would be the game used to feel a lot more like a coffee break game. I could play a day's turns at work and not really feel guilty about spending time playing a game at work, that's not the case any more. I know Jick has talked about "nerfing" adventures from consumption, anything coming?

I guess it is hard to play it competitively and casually at the same time these days, as it's gotten more complex. I'd say the answer to that is to just play it casually and not competitively -- run some turns when you want to, check out new stuff, but don't try to max every turn spent. Then you can still enjoy it without having to master it.

I know that's not possible for some people -- it's super easy for someone like me, who is terrible at video games and for whom mastery is never an option :-).

So, the comic book Kickstarter was a major success. How many issues do you plan to release, and on what sort of time frame? I enjoyed the first one, and I'm looking forward to grabbing the second when it goes up on the KOL Store.

The current story arc has six issues. I wrote a synopsis for all six and have the script for five of them so far. I have vague plans for another story arc, and plenty of weird shit in the Kingdom left to explain, so we'll see!

As far as time frame. . . well, it's all up to how fast Doug can draw 'em. I'm looking into performance-enhancing drugs, caffeine drips, and just straight up having his sleep removed, so we'll see. Our goal is to have #2 and #3 done by San Diego Comic-Con.

Is #6 a staff member responsible only for monitoring activity in the kingdom, or is he/she a staff member who holds more varies duties?

6 is but one facet of a glittering jewel. Y'know, like Jesus Christ in the trinity, or Morpheus as Dream of the Endless.

Fuck yeah, it's Skully!

Which Item of the Month has your favorite writing? For me it's the Pen Pal, no question. I always crack up when I read them.

The Sandworm and Green Pixie were tied for my favorite writing for a long time, but I think the Kloop wins now. That took so much time, but was so very rewarding, that it brings me great joy.

I liked Alice's Army a lot- I know you did too because i saw you in /wizards a lot when it came out. Anyway, it's kind of died off, nobody plays much anymore. What do you think about maybe letting people play "by mail", as in let people take turns over longer periods of time. They could play even if they're on at different times, kinda like Frozen Synapse or old school Chess by mail. This could save AA. Thoughts?

I like that idea. I mean, it's okay that Alice's Army gradually lost popularity, but it'd also be rad if it could get revitalized.

I'm still pushing for an expansion pack.

I loved learning to "speak sword." Any chance of a similarly disruptive item to the preposition sword any time soon? Chat effects are all cool but this one gets big laughs when I explain it to others.

Heh, you should see the "Best Joke Ever" effect. Or maybe you shouldn't.

I think the Jawbruiser's pretty disruptive . . .

But yeah, I love chat effects. It's a good way to add fun to an IotM without having to balance it for actual gameplay.

Holy shit holy shit holy shit. Umm... okay. Do you think the game has become too convoluted after NS13? I realize that the game must progress to keep being entertaining, but the last time I logged in, the sheer amount of content was overwhelming. At what point does expansion stagnate and serve only to hold the game back? Do you think you've ever reached that point before, or will in the future?

I don't think too much content is a problem. I think we need to allow people ways to only look at subsets of it at a time, for sure. And I'd like to make it easier to handle inventory, streamline the mountains of quest items and familiar larvae you get, that kind of thing. And having the reset button is a good way for people to start at zero again.

I'd like a Bad Moon alternative that allows you to start a fresh character without having to do a Bad Moon lead-in. Like, a way to have multiple characters under one account, so you can make a new one but still be you in chat. Would that help?

An idea that I had posted a few years ago on the forums.

I would love to see a feature that lets us fight bosses of our choice by paying some sort of meat fee or other. Something like the Daily Dungeon but with bosses only. Of course, this feature shouldn't have real high stat gains so nobody exploits it for high stat gains, but maybe something like collectible memorabilia that people can use as trophies or some sort of leaderboard attached to the number of bosses/times players have defeated.

I love fighting the Naughty Sorceress and I'm sad that I can only fight her once per ascension. On the side note, I fought her a again a month ago. It's just too easy now. I think you should reimplement the requirement of having the Wand of Nagamar be equipped either off-hand or as the primary weapon. I should be needing 2 or 3 attempts to beat her. It's too simple now.

Thoughts?

I agree that the NS isn't the fight she used to be, especially since she doesn't scale anymore.

I do like the idea of some kind of hologram arena where you can fight bosses, maybe even scaling bosses. But would people do it if you didn't get stats from it?

I have recently gotten glasses, so I can see words and read them properly, and reading the combat text again reminds me why I logged back in a second time, not to mention the countless times thereafter.

So I was wondering, what are your favorite literary works?

Yes, comic books included.

Let's see. . . non-illustrated favorite books, off the top of my head:

• Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein

• The Phantom Tollbooth, Norman Juster

• Everything he's Written and especially Nation, Terry Pratchett

• Gormenghast trilogy, Mervyn Peake

• Everything he's written but especially Lamb, Christopher Moore

• Everything he's written but especially Lisey's Story, oddly enough, Stephen King

• American Gods and Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman

• Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear and hope to fuck he doesn't ruin it, Patrick Rothfuss

Illustrated:

• Sandman series, Neil Gaiman

• Stardust, Neil Gaiman.

• See also: Neil Gaiman.

• Watchmen, Alan Moore (naturally)

• Akiko series, Mark Crilley (it's like Star Wars + Wizard of Oz + Manga)

• Buffy Season 8, I'm a giant Joss fanboy.

I just wanted to tell you: I love you. Also, you're awesome. Thanks <3

. . . Jick's mom?

do geese see god?

Smut orcs deliver reviled scrotums.

My friend was the person who wrote you guys to suggest the sleaze damage attack from the XXX pr0n!

"He smacks you with his 1337 skills. But it's not the 1337, it's the tumidity."

He was so proud that his punning got included in the game. You guys are amazing.

How could we possibly overlook such an amazing pun?

Many moons ago I bought some KoL buttons... but then I lost them all.

After I lost them, it felt so wrong to play the game... It felt as if I had accidentally killed someone and then unknowingly bought their house (Fully furnished by the way. With a rad wardrobe and a sweet king sized bed.) and despite every awesome thing about the house something was wrong. The wardrobe was eerie. The bed was unsettled with my presence. All the while I'm clueless as to why. I didn't quite know what was wrong but I knew something about it was. Eventually I would become ashamed to look at the wardrobe, I would be emasculated sleeping in the bed and the amazing walk in closet I forgot to mention left a lingering sense of betrayal every time I took a step inside.

I guess what I'm trying to say is... I'm sorry I killed you.

Hey, it's all good. We all kill a few people when we're young and don't know any better.

What I'm saying is, you should buy some more buttons.

I'm at the account/character creation screen as we speak. You've intrigued me Mr Skullhead.

EDIT: type/speak meh

I hope you enjoy our little game!

I adore the game, thank you so much! Will we ever be able to do anything else (sell, or whatever) with extra familiars from the Nemesis quest? I'm starting to feel bad about abandoning all those disco balls and cheez blobs in my closet...

Ooo! We should have the Traveling Trader ask for those.

What are your opinions on Mafia and/or the various GM scripts out there? I see from the screenshot you are using tabbed chat (unless cdm snuck that in to the dev server recently or something).

I've never used Mafia but I like that it exists. I can't live without tabbed chat these days, for reals. I think the thing I linked is something CDMoyer cooked up, since the other one only works in FireFox and I'm all Chrome-y these days.

I've had an account since '04 which I've played on and off, and I must say one of my most memorable moments from you was your rant from '08. Glorious. Thanks for making a sweet game.

Heh, speaking of spikes in membership, the rant of '08 led to a review on an MMO site which led to one of the biggest new sign-up rushes since the game's inception. Funny ol' world.

Why does Jick love weenorz so much?

He's developed a connoisseur's taste for them over many, many years.

I was going to ask what was/is your greatest accomplishment and greatest disappointment (in relation to KoL)? Please don't feel sad. Thank you for hours of fun, entertainment and challenge. KoL has changed my life...and not in the creepy recovering alterboy way either.

Greatest KoL accomplishment: ascension, definitely. Jick took the skeleton of an idea that i had and put some damn good flesh on it.

Greatest disappointment? Huh. Y'know, I honestly can't think of one. Usually when the player base is disappointed in something that I do, it turns out for the best in the end. Like the Crimbo that had me swearing a blue streak in the forums ended up bringing about the Crimbomination.

Will we be able to visit Distant Lands? You know, explore new exciting locations, fight dreadful monsters, meet a pen friend (if you bought one) and stuff like that.

Hey, and thanks for making such an awesome game! Keep up the good work.

Probably not, but there's going to be some really cool shit in the Sea when it's finished. So, y'know, hit us back in 2015.

I keed, I keed. We're working on the Sea even now.

Are there any plans for an English convention? We English always miss out on conventions and items from them.

There were a couple of stellar KoLondon meets back in the day . . . 2005 and 2006, I think? Those were the days when money was flowing into the Kingdom like wine, and flowing out like Jick had an evil soon-to-be-ex-wife with expensive tastes. We spent a couple weeks in the UK each of those years.

These days, there's still enough income to pay everybody, but we've become aware of money as a finite concept, and probably wouldn't do another month in the U.K.

But you can always organize a meet of your own! Throw down a thread in the forums and make some plans, and we might even send you some groovy things to help make it work.

How has the KoL Wiki changed how you write the game? Do you think it would be possible for a new player to complete a whole ascension without using the wiki?

I don't think the Wiki has changed how we write puzzles or anything, but the nature of gaming has changed since we wrote the game. Games like ours always give the player a way to beat the game without figuring out a puzzle, if that's what they want to do. So we've been revamping quests to make it possible to just click until you solve, but faster if you know what's up.

And no, it probably wouldn't be possible to finish the game without the Wiki, so we definitely need the revamps we're doing.

On a side note, it'd also be impossible to write the game without that Wiki. Instant access to everything we've ever written makes it so we don't repeat ourselves and we can build our mythology coherently.

With the shenanigans that was the Bonestar Shirt, would you ever attempt doing something similar in the future through the store, or would it take the comic-kickstarter route?

I will continue to push Jick to do stuff like the Bonestar shirt. We certainly won't do it, or anything else, with that printer again, of course.

The comic was different in that Jick believed there was a total market of about 300 for them, and Hotstuff thought 500, and I thought 1,000, and nobody believed me. Jick didn't want to pony up the money without proof of demand, and then Kickstarter became a thing, and then everyone was awesome.

Oh no, I've started adventuring again.

Mwa-ha-ha-ha.