Virtual Family Kingdom?

[TinkRocks]

I signed up for beta - let's see what happens.

[KineGirl]

me too

[Jeremy]

Yes Pirate alot signed up for the beta program. If we lose and VMK closes I'll be trying VFK instead of the other games disney is offering.

Thanks Tea.

oh cool.
i have not heard of this before.
i dont know anything about it.

[TinkRocks]

Obviously, if VMK can be saved, we shall rejoice, but VFK is the backup plan.

[Chescat]

Nothing can replace VMK, but if there is some way VMK can be saved and there is a down time between closing and start up, this is at least a place to go.

I've also heard about some people on other boards saying VFK is a fraud and going to do things to your machine etc. We don't know for sure what this site is yet. All we have provided is an email (not your normal one!) and a title of a character. At this point nothing can get you. I would suggest if you are worried, to just let others play it and then we wait for the reports to come back. I also got a couple friends looking into whether its legit or not. We'll keep people up to date here if any of you guys hear anything bad.

[jjramsey]

Yesterday, I sent the following note with some suggestions to VFK:

Our family is eagerly awaiting the release of your new game.

In the process of producing VFK we have the folloing suggestions:

Many families that we know have dial-up, so some form of optimization, or
downloadable routines would be nice.

If you have games that award something, try to keep them inside the
overall game and restricted to 'character' involvement. With VMK, some
code hackers were able to bypass the system and get scads of codes from
the code generators.

Allow boys and girls items to be traded between boys and girls. A boy's
character would not be able to wear the girl's items and vice versa, but
by having them tradable, it would cut down on 'mules' and would allow
trading between boys and girls.

In trade windows, allow a lot of items to be added to an active trade. In
VMK, only 15 items at a time could be added on each side of the trade.
Unfortunately, a lot of players got scammed when they needed to give
multiple windows of trade to another player for a single valuable item.
The scammer would accept several windows of items and then disappear
before they 'had' to give their item.

I do not know how you could keep the program free for any extended period
of time, so if you had an extended capability account that people pay a
subscription for it would help defray expenses. please keep in mind that
families would probably have multiple users, so please keep it economical
by having a base first person price and then add-on price for each
additional.

Thanks for all the effort you are putting into this!
If you need any part-time online staff/help, our family would love to
assist you,

Jeff

In less than 24 hours they responded with:

Hi Jeff,

I really appreciate your kind note. It was a joy to receive.

We are using the latest technology from Adobe for Flash, which is the AS3
language. This means it will run smoother and faster in your browser and
be a smaller download.

In addition, Adobe has released a new product named AIR for developers to
use when building flash applications. AIR makes it possible to have the
flash application work on your desktop outside of the browser. This will
be great for those with a dial-up connection.

We agree with your suggestions, and have had quite a number of requests to
make it possible for boys to buy or trade for girl items, but to not be
able to wear them, and vice versa. We are definitely making this part of
the system.

We have also expanded the trade window to make it easier to do large trades.

The Virtual Family Kingdom will be free, just as everyone is used to. The
great part of this project is that so many people have shared ideas about
how to create revenue to support everything we are blessed with the task
of choosing the best ones.

Thanks again,

Sara
Virtual Family Kingdom
954-349-3325

They must be getting exhausted with the development of VFK, since they responded to my email at 3 a.m. this morning. Now realizing that VMK had to deal with a lot of people, so it was iffy to get any response from an email, it was still quite amazing to get a response from VFK! It seems as if they are covering a lot of territory and potential issues right off.

...by the way...not the response I would expect from anybody trying to sneek a scam on somebody ;-)

[mickeynuts]

I still don't understand why a legitimate game under development would use very badly edited art stolen from vmk and try to pass it off as their own.
It was only there for a day, but it was there. And what they've replaced it with could have been drawn in 5 minutes.
I still don't trust it.
Laura

[*tinker_belle*]

I'm with Cita. It's so sketchy i don't trust it. I'm going to wait to hear feedback from you guys to determine if its worth my while.
Whats baffling is the fact that VFK has a petition link on their page for Save VMK. I find that odd. If VMK ends up staying, VFK will probably be down the flusher.

[jjramsey]

I'm with Cita. It's so sketchy i don't trust it. I'm going to wait to hear feedback from you guys to determine if its worth my while.
Whats baffling is the fact that VFK has a petition link on their page for Save VMK. I find that odd. If VMK ends up staying, VFK will probably be down the flusher.

It does sound strange, but from what I can gather, their kids also love VMK and would prefer to play it. They are making a place that not only their kids can play in, but opening it up to a wider audience. Plus, I think they feel there is room for more than one game in the market even if VMK stays open. Even Disney feels there should be multiple options.

...plus, it is not like we said our 'vows' to be 'faithful' unto one game til they doth shut it down. There are many on here that play PoTC and VMK. This does not make them any less loyal, if anything, they probably will not 'burn' out as easily when doing things like the weekend pirate quest!Even with VMK running, occasional I would play something else for a break, then come back to VMK. Every game has their strengths and weaknesses. Hey, the history angle might have an educational twist for our kids, and even if VMK & VFK both run...and continue to run, I would probably play some of both, even though I currently prefer VMK

[JPL]

What VFK did with using the VMK images was try and take advantage of the loss of VMK. Although it might be see as alittle less than ethical it was a smart business move to capitalize on the announcement in order to promote a similar product. Of course only time will tell if it is legit or not but I don't see it as anything to be scared of.

[RenDuran]

Who voted for their favorite room on VFK?

[Chescat]

I'll admit I'm more into POTC Online any more since I just got tired of the same old same old with VMK. With a lot of the ways for getting credits down, it was almost impossible to get the new magic and try and quest unless you were on VMK a lot. The Gingerbread competition sealed the deal for me. I just have night times and part of the weekend. I play Pirates late at night when I'm ready to sit down and play into the wee hours of the morning. Funny part was the Pirate Quest actually got a lot of us from POTC online back to VMK, because we wanted to help each other.

My reason for saving VMK or finding another game like VKF is selfish. I want to keep my VMK friends (especially ones that can't play pirates) and be able to stay with them. We've become a family and I don't want to lose the ability to see an avatar. We tried Club Penguin and I guess worse case is we can play over there.

That's why I'm going to fight, protest or whatever it takes to save VMK. If that doesn't work, then VFK is going to be my answer. Yes we are montoring it to see if it is in fact safe before we do it. But we are going to find a place to land. I'm not going to lose you guys.

[RicksCafe]

I still don't trust it.

Oh Cita....

Call me irresponsible...

Tell me I'm impractical...

Rainbows I'm inclined to pursue...lalala

But we're desperate here, dancer!

Come on, I'm a part-time Calvinist and even I trust these peeps. What do they have on me... a phony email address? (I mean, cough, my email, cough... Smelly VFK Watcher Monkeys!!)

Ricks (who's irresponsibly mad for... you!)

[jjramsey]

Who voted for their favorite room on VFK?

We did. You sure have to look for the link!

For the rest of you head on over and vote for your favorite color combo...and no you do not need to be registered. The link is right under the picture of the room at the top of the page.

[JPL]

I think the large numbers of people signing up for VFK just shows how much the interactions and friendships we have made mean to all of us. The risk is small to sign up while the rewards may be great.

[Marla]

Call me cautious, but I too will wait to see how this new game goes before I join it. I hope VMK is saved, but it does not look good. I will keep checking back here to see what you all have decided.

[JPL]

What everyone has been doing is creating a seperate e-mail for VFK and just registering their VMK title so they have it when the game opens. This way for the most part you are safe

[*tinker_belle*]

OK OK so i registered a new email and just signed up for VFK....blahhhh i can't believe i just did that. And i didn't register my VMK name IzzyInWonderland because I felt it pertained to Disney and I'm leaving those memories with VMK. So I'm probably going to be LittleMissIzzy. I should have been, IzzyWonder but i think i had a brain fart.

[Patricia]

*tinker_belle*,

you would be wise to register your VMK title separately under a different address.. so nobody else can use your VMK title. It could be confusing to your vmk friends, if they meet someone using your old title.

For instance, WDWizard IM'd me the other day asking if I was "a Patricia" that contacted him on another Disney Site. I don't go to any other Disney sites (there are other Disney sites??) but it confused him. Reminding me I should have registered "Patricia" on every Disney site, even if I don't use them.

[*tinker_belle*]

Thats a good idea Patricia thank you! I'll see what i can do about having it changed.