Hi, Kippy McFidget
Filed under Reviews on October 13, 2006
Keywords: Disney, MMORPGs, ToonTown
It’s my nephew’s fault. He came over a couple weeks ago and couldn’t stop talking about it. I thought it might be a chance to bond with him, so I asked him to show it to me. He did, and I haven’t stopped playing with it since.
I’m hooked on my first MMORPG. (Why are you looking at me like that?) I’ve shied away from them up until now for many reasons: time, griefers, subscription fees. Disney’s ToonTown Online takes care of two out of those three issues.
As Kippy McFidget, the short, reddish-brown-furred monkey, I cavort around ToonTown’s neighborhoods throwing gags at Cogs and fishing. When I get tired, I hop through my handy black hole to my house, where I garden and play with my pet Doodle. Occasionally, I’ll team up with other Toons to reclaim buildings taken over by Cogs. All this costs me less than $10/month. The game installs off their website (IE-only), so I didn’t have to fork out additional money for a box and a CD-ROM.
The game is fun and is very kid-oriented. It’s a little above my three-year-old, but my six-year-old nephew seems to have mastered it, and adults will also find it engaging. While this might sound like a predator’s playground, Disney has put in place some measures to prevent such preying. Avatars interact only through pre-set emotes. Freeform chatting is only available if you know someone’s secret code, a randomly generated password that expires 48 hours after it is created. It is only possible to get someone’s secret code via email outside of the game, and there is no mechanism in-game to give someone your email address. While I’ve found it frustrating as a game mechanic, I appreciate the safety it provides the kids.
Unfortunately, I believe ToonTown may be a gateway MMO, whetting my appetite for the one MMO I ever had any interest in playing. So, after my subscription for TTO runs out in a few more months (I prepaid for six months to get a price break), I may don the spandex and head to Paragon City.
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October 13th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Don’t do it, Kameron. For the love of any books you want to write in the near future, don’t start playing MMORPGs! I played star wars galaxies for nearly 2 years, and it sucked up a lot of time where I should have been writing.
Just say no.