WE found more charms yesterday and I had enough to get a special gift, a fountain.
When I went to put it into my room, a message popped up saying that Webkinz World had to go down for maintenance, and when I clicked okay it kicked me out. However, I could get back into the application immediately.
But my fountain is nowhere to be seen.
Apparently then I had to e-mail Ganz to get it replaced. I hear they are not responding to these requests like they used to and are brusquely telling people not to share their passwords. But this didn't disappear while I was logged off; it vanished while I was online manipulating it.
They haven't responded and it looks like I will have to call them. Joy.
Vanished!
How Charming!
I was in the throes of a nap this afternoon when my cell rang. I had slept very badly last night and was using a free hour between laundry and floor washing to catch a few more winks, so I didn't answer it.
When I did finally check my message, it was from Love Street. They said they would call me if the Webkinz charms came in. The proprietor was apologetic. About an hour after she called me, a woman had come in, seen the charms and bought three of every one she had. There were very few left. I asked her to save me three and tossed on some clothes and zipped over there.
These are quite attractive little charms considering they are being mass-produced for a website. Trifari sold charms off and on over the years and they were equally solid (not to mention more expensive and this was almost thirty years ago!). The Webkinz ones are of a silver polished pot-metal on the back and are enameled on the front. Instead of just a link to fasten it on a bracelet, they come with a little clip so they can be used on zipper pulls and other items of that sort.
I purchased a golden retriever, a white terrier, and the chihuahua, which I'd asked her to save for me, and also the monkey. I left the panda and a Wacky Zingoz behind. There were only about four left. I suspect the woman who made the big haul is going to sell the extras on e-Bay. They are selling for phenomenal amounts there.
The charms come with codes and gain you access to something called the Charms Forest. Once in the forest you can pick one of four paths and hunt for virtual charms and gifts, which you get by clicking on a fairy who either gives you a fairy pod or a key. The gifts can be as small as charms candy, which you can feed to your pet, to sap, which apparently is the booby prize, and as big as little pieces of furniture and even a charms tree. The deeper you can go into the forest, the more you can collect, and the better prizes you get.
My first charms prize was a charm candy. At least Pablito liked it.
The Webkinz in the Dell
LIKE some other Webkinz property owners, I have started a farm. I harvested "farm-fresh" tomatoes, strawberries and carrots this morning and thought it would be good to invest in a new yard and move my existing vegetables there. They are in essense "replanted" and will not bear fruit again for a while now.
In a couple of days I will buy a few more plants of various varieties and then in a few more days a few more, and so on until the rows are full, so that I will have plants harvesting at different times.
Some folks talk about garden plots large enough that they are selling their produce back to the W Shop. [waves at Jerry] Right now I'm just providing for my brood. :-)
My former vegetable plot is now a little grove of trees next to an expanded picnic area.
Iron Balloons
SUPPOSEDLY they're trying Balloon Darts again tomorrow. The last time they had it, after the upgrade, the top row of balloons did not pop at all. The dart would "stop" at the skin of the balloon and nothing else happened. It was quite funny if rather frustrating. It only took me three failures before I tried the middle and bottom rows! Persistent I be.
[Note: 08/07/2007; apparently the first row of Balloon Darts are as impervious as last time. I just aimed at the bottom row. :-)]
Creative Minds, Part 2
HERE'S another slideshow of creative room designs. There's even a Starbuck's and a Mexican restaurant!
That Pesky Date
IF you are having trouble, like I was, with the date on the site reversing one hour when you log in, some super person on the Webkinz Insider forum ("googles") posted this trick that works:
Proceed as if you were adopting a new Webkinz. When Mrs. Birdy finishes talking and the clipboard pops up, use the X in the upper right hand corner to get out of the adoption center. Your room will load and the time will be correct!
[Update 8/11: The site was down a couple of mornings ago and now the date seems to be working properly.
There are also numbers on the markers and flags in Wacky Zingoz again. Oh, yeah, and food is successfully being distributed again.]
A Little Behind the Curve, Aren't They?
SINCE Webkinz have been in release since late 2005 and this isn't coming out for another six months!
Amazon.com: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Webkinz (Complete Idiot's Guide to)
Alarms and Exhortations
GANZ has been warning users for several weeks that a new layout would be premiering on August 2. It requires that people set their monitors to 1024x768 to use the site properly. A followup message stated that the Webkinz site would be down from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. on that day to implement the change. Great excitement was then heard in the land of the forums.
Naturally I didn't expect it up by the prescribed time and I was correct; it actually staggered from its server almost an hour later. And when it finally did it was buggy as all get out: the time on the clock would change, some things didn't have captions, some games didn't work, peoples' rooms didn't load, etc., all to be expected when launching a new website. Some people were redirected to a completely different site that had nothing to do with Ganz.
Since the majority of the users are young people, there were bound to be some complaints about things not working right.
"Complaints" didn't cover it. "Complaints" still doesn't cover it. There are still torrents of messages wailing about how the new format is "confusing" (it's not; it's actually arranged much better), that this is the worst thing that is happened to them in their lives and that the new format is so ugly that they will never use it again, etc. I suppose if I was their age using it I probably would feel the same way—I remember wailing and railing over canceled television programs and unpublished books and favorite store closings throughout my youth—but viewing it from an adult's perspective it's been hard not to smile a little. Oh, if this is the worst disappointment they will ever have in their lives!
They are right about one thing: Ganz sure didn't beta test this thing enough before premiering it! Some people are simply having trouble getting the new screen to work or appear full screen at all. When you get in, the Kinztime changes abruptly when the newspaper loads it jumped back an hour every time I loaded it in Firefox (it worked okay in IE), so that daily events were not coming up properly. Today when you clicked on a free food it never appeared in your dock. Some of the games are strange, too. Polar Plunge is funky; it doesn't "feel" the way it did before and goes too quickly in some places and too slowly in the other. When you play Wacky Zingoz the distance measurements do not show up on the placards and pennants. You only know how far you've gone after your score is posted. Sometimes when you play the Chef Challenge or Supermodelz Challenge, the judges' word balloons are empty.
However, for the most part I like the full page layout. I've had problems playing a couple of games, Go-Go Googles in particular and sometimes Candy Bash 2, where my mouse went off the partial screen being used and valuable game time was wasted while I switched back. The different choices of things to do are arranged in categories. You can always see the Logout button no matter what you are doing, and you can always access your pets without having to go to the menu.
One of the reasons for the expansion was to put in "ads." They are really only ads for Webkinz World itself—thank heavens, we're not seeing commercials for Oreos or Boniva here!—but they have some people smoking mad. I notice some of them are Webkinz versions of PSAs; they say things like "Fresh air is good for you. Go outside and play for awhile," "Brush your teeth," "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," etc. Obviously Ganz wants to show parents that they care about their children's well-being.
Monkey See, Monkey Do
WEBKINZ aren't the only interactive toys out there.
It happens in books and on television particularly: one success in a certain genre is followed by others in imitation. The Waltons begat almost a dozen family-oriented shows in the early 1970s, only one (Little House on the Prairie) of which succeeded. When Animal House was a big hit, all three networks created series about fraternity houses. And on.
There are of course online worlds that don't come with a stuffed animal, Club Penguin being one. You choose a penguin, give it a name, and then confirm that your child can play there by answering an e-mail. Once inside, you can decorate your penguin's igloo and play games. You can sign up for free, but if you want to continue the account, you must pay a monthly or yearly membership.
Shining Stars, made by Russ, are a type of interactive pet that comes with a stuffed animal like Webkinz. When you buy a Shining Stars stuffed pet, it also comes with a code that allows access to a website. The gimmick with Shining Stars is that when you join you get a star named after you, although of course these star-naming" businesses don't really officially name stars after anyone. On the Shining Stars site you earn "Glow Points" and presumably can play similar games as to Webkinz.
I saw the Shining Stars today while I was out at lunch. They're pretty cute—you can see that they have several animals that resemble their Webkinz versions, like the unicorn and the cow. They also have a dragon, which is kinda cool. They strike me as a little more "cartoony" than Webkinz.
Even the "Bratz" line of dolls are about to start a virtual world called "Be-Bratz."
Last week there was a bit of a flurry on the Webkinz Outsider forum about yet another iteration: Kookeys. According to the promo now on the web, Kookeys live in KooLand and earn KooCash made up of KooCoins. They can live in several different theme neighborhoods, in dwellings ranging from a log cabin to a dollhouse to a mansion, shop and play games on Main Street, hang out at the lake, or even go to KooKollege.
The reception on the Forum was pretty much in the negative, most seeing it as a rip-off of Webkinz. No, it's just a fact of life in marketing land.
I thought the graphics looked interesting if a bit cartoony myself. However, although the promo site exists, not a hint of what the actual stuffed animals might look like exists in virtual space. If the animated critters who are on the promo site are any indication, it looks as if the stuffed Kookeys will be a bit cartoony as well, but no way to know until they're unveiled.
But that name...Kookeys. Sheesh. I wouldn't have found it at all appealing when I was a kid.
Have Katie Roo and Kenny Roo (and Mayor Moose) introduce you to Kookeys.
Charming Webkinz
THE new animals, toiletries, costumes, and bookmarks aren't enough for Ganz. They will also be releasing a set of charms soon. One of the reasons for Ganz to be doing a major update of the Webkinz site tomorrow is to add something called the Charms Forest.
The charms you buy are just what they sound like: charm bracelet figurines that cost about $3.00 each. You can also buy a bracelet for them and a necklace; the necklace tops out in expense at $7.95. I have heard some complaints about the cost, but as someone who used to work in a jewelry factory, I can tell you that $3 for an enameled charm and $4 for a chain necklace is pretty inexpensive. Anyway, each of the charms comes with a code. You need only one charm and one code to access the Charms Forest, featuring more of what looks like the good and bad fairies from the Tulip Trouble game. Every six hours you can search one patch of the Charms Forest to find virtual charms or even prizes. The more charms you purchase, the further you can go into the Forest, but one will get you in.
That Face, Those Eyes...
ALL the animal avatars have their "cute factor," and some, like the husky, are downright handsome.
But I think for cute factor that the Clydesdale has them all beat. Emily does "cute" better than anyone:
On the other hand, she's not always a sweet little girl. This is what happened when I threw the ball incorrectly while bowling:
At least I didn't make her really mad:
Clever Rooms
"WEBKINZ Insider" has an entire forum of people showing off their rooms. Some of these designs are very clever. Here is a slideshow of one member's different designs.
Strut That Stuff
IF you had fun doing Chef Gazpacho's Chef Challenge, you might want to try Webkinz Supermodelz. I have no interest in clothing, but this is as equally fun as the Chef Challenge. You pick a model, then take your pick of one of several choices of hats, pants, and tops. (The advice I read on Webkinz Insider was to not match outfits; in general the judges' attitude is "the wilder the better.") This is where the fun factor comes in, because you model may end up in a Pilgrim hat, and Santa jacket, and multicolor polka-dotted pants. Too funny!
I'll Never Be Emeril
EXCEPT perhaps in a game.
One can simply go to the W Shop and purchase different foods and feed them individually to your pets. Each food adds a different combination of happiness and health points and points toward assuaging the pet's hunger. (You can even purchase a food that is specially made for your pet, but it is usually expensive, about W25.) You can also grow vegetables using the new gardening feature.
Elubin's website has a nice table of each food, how much it costs, and how much of a boost you get from each food. (If you notice, when you eat junk food like fudge your health actually goes down a point! LOL. There's a positive lesson in there somewhere.)
However, there's a wrinkle for the creative among the membership. You can buy a stove, a blender, or a sandwich maker, and each of them has "recipes." To make a recipe, you take three foods and put them "on" whatever cookery item you own and click the cook/blend button.
If you've used foods that actually make a new food, it will appear in your dock. Unfortunately, no matter how good some combinations look, they only make something called "gak" or "blech." Your pet will eat it, but it doesn't make him happy.
My attitude to this has been pretty blah. It seems to me that if you blend three foods with a certain point value together that the foods should be worth that combined point value, but they aren't. To me you pretty much waste the food values just to be creative.
YMMV!
The Webkinz Insider site has a nice list of Webkinz Recipes for all three devices including a picture of what your creation comes out to be.
If you want to have some fun combining food without losing points, you can go to the tournament arena and play Chef Gazpacho's Chef Challenge. You have to use three of the six sometimes unlikely ingredients (a cupcake, carrots, root beer, an apple, chicken soup, and a hamburger) to make things with unlikely names like "Gersplitz Garbleblaster." The three judges are all Webkinz host or game characters and they will treat you with pithy comments about your cooking skills (or lack of same). First contestant to make three good recipes wins.
Roll, Webkinz, Roll!
I dropped W10,000 on a rare purchase for my game room yesterday.
I bought a bowling alley.
Yes, you really can bowl on it; it's not simply a decoration. Previously I had only used the bowling alley at the Tournament Arena and I really needed something to practice on.
Bowling alleys bring back all sorts of warm fuzzy memories to me, although what I purchased is the classic ten-pin bowling type, and my memories have to do with duckpin bowling. My parents bowled in a Sunday couples league all during my schooldays (all the teams were named after mixed drinks; I still get nostalgic when "Grasshoppers" are mentioned) and Dad also bowled in a summer league. After he retired, at least one day a week he would go down to Legion Bowladrome on Park Avenue and keep score for the retired men's leagues that bowled on weekday afternoons; if someone didn't show up he sometimes bowled as a substitute. (After Mom retired, she told him she married him for better or for worse—but not for lunch.)
I wasn't much of a bowler, even when I bowled with Jeannie and Don, two other kids who accompanied their parents to the Sunday night league, and used to spend most of my time at the table behind the alley area writing stories. If I was really bored I might go into the ladies' room and act out a story when the place was empty. I watched almost all of the first run of Get Smart on the television that was in back of the checkout counter/shoe rental counter. It was very hard for me to ask the clerks behind the counter to change the channel, because I was so shy, but all of them were friends of my dad and they usually did as I asked, unless there was a hotly contested Providence College Friars basketball game on. I still hate basketball! :-)
The one thing I have noticed about the personal bowling alley vs. the one in the Tournament Arena is that the latter seems to have more "action" in its ball (if a ball in a virtual Shockwave program can be said to have action!). I can get more strikes and spares playing in a tournament than I can back in my game room.
Maybe that's a good thing because I need all the help I can get. :-)
Sad
ONE type of post I am reading continually in Webkinz Insider are stories about children who have shared their passwords with schoolfriends and who get up one morning, go into Webkinz, and find all the things they have "bought," their Kinzcash, and some of their rare items gone. Their so-called "friends" have hacked into their account and spent or taken everything.
How depressing to have considered someone enough of a friend to have shared something special with them and have it turn out that you have been used. Disillusionment starts early.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)