Newsletter 4/7 Bye Bye VMK

[cEveArdenfan]

So...what are the chances of an Intercot chat room?

...if it wasn't for VMK, I would've never met you guys.

I sure am going to miss VMK. It's filled many a boring hour for me. Plus I met all of you on there. I'm glad we still have intercot, but I'll miss visiting with all you little virtual people. I'll be posting more often on here since I can't talk to you all in the game and I'll try to be on VMK a lot more often until the end of May staying up later than I have been.

[bigpapiortiz34]

When I read this, of course, I almost shed a tear or two. This game has basically become APART of me life. So have all of you guys, and the many other friends that I have met in the game.

Its most definitely a shame that it is closing. It is actually very hard to pull away from something that you have been doing for 3 YEARS NOW (wow, has it been THAT long?). I don't really know what I will do without VMK and all of you. Clean I guess?

If I dont get to say this before the game closes to all of you, I guess I will say this now.

THANK YOU

You all have been extremely wonderful people, and I am so grateful for all of you. You have been nothing but the best to me, and I cant thank you enough for that. If it wasn't for all of you, I probably wouldn't still be playing VMK. You have made this some of the greatest gaming years of my life. Thank you all. You all truly mean something to me.

Gosh I feel like I am giving a graduation speech. I guess in a way it is like a graduation, except we are like 2nd grade dropouts

I will be around INTERCOT, of course, so hopefully you see some of my posts around. And, hopefully, one day or another, I will be lucky enough to bump into one of you in say, WDW or DLR.

And hey, what is going to happen to the VMK section of intercot?

Anyway, hopefully we will have a HUGE party on May 21st, so I can see your little VMK characters one more time...

If I dont see you by then, god bless

-Diddy

[WDWizard]

I knew the game was bound to close ever since they discontinued in park quests. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did since it was only a promotion for the 50th. Even though I won't miss it much, I'll miss Vmk being there for me to play when Im bored.

Things WDWizard wants to do before he virtually dies...
- Use an inferno pin
- Destroy all ride rooms while chescat watches in horror

[janebanks]

I just logged into VMK for the first time in awhile, saw the note on the home page, rushed over here to Intercot, and read the newsletter.

So now my virtual self is sitting on a bench in Main Street, absolutely stunned, not even wanting to visit my dusty rooms.

My real self is choking on my Grape Nuts.

I've been working full-time so we could have medical benefits (my husband is temporarily out of work), managing two small children and this big, old house, and thinking, "Well, I can't get to WDW, but there's always VMK - I can join the ongoing chats and fun there with my Intercot friends any time and take a break from life... oh, and when I get to quit my job, I'll have VMK every day!"


so sad

[fluffies]

I know I'm not on even nearly as often as I used to be, but when I heard the news it disappointed me greatly.

Not only have we spent immeasurable amounts of time & energy on this game, doing quests, earning enough credits for new things, and so on... but we've established a virtual family! And to know that they're taking a way the "place" in which we can all "meet" is unreal

[Chescat]

Things WDWizard wants to do before he virtually dies...
- Use an inferno pin
- Destroy all ride rooms while chescat watches in horror

Things I'd like to do:

Virtually hit WDWIzard over the head and boot out of my room
Destroy his ride rooms myself

[mickeytinkerbellprincess]

Oh wow, ltns Fluffies.

It's really ironic, I'm trying so hard to make time to go on VMK, and bam, they decide to close when it gets really busy. Sigh. I'm dreading the good-byes in May.

[mrsgaribaldi]

I don't even know what to say. I tried pirates and it slowed my computer to a crawl, and in toontown we can't even chat.

You can chat in Toontown but you need to have a password with your friends that you all put online. AT least this is how it used to be. I haven't played in a while. But if you get together with your friends from VMK and give each other your screen names for Toontown and a password that you all agree on, you should be able to chat.

[varcity]

You can chat in Toontown but you need to have a password with your friends that you all put online. AT least this is how it used to be. I haven't played in a while. But if you get together with your friends from VMK and give each other your screen names for Toontown and a password that you all agree on, you should be able to chat.

I did this with someone on intercot, exchanged codes. typed them in, and chatted. Best thing about it is that there isn't a huge restriction on the dictionary, just nothing explicit or personal.

[jjramsey]

We can always hope Disney changes their minds about closing VMK. I do not want to throw a wet blanket on things, but it seems in the past due to Disney's corporate size, that once they make a statement there is no moving them from that direction. Just think of the number of times there has been an uproar about the closing or refurbishment of a park attraction. How many times have they changed their plans due to public opinion? ...sigh...

The thing that is amazing to us is that Disney did not even offer, "Look folks, this expensive. We need to set up a pay-to-play or will need to shut down." They just up and shut it down. My wife feels that they are trying to dump the popularity of VMK into the other (3 is it?) pay-to-play systems to raise income. In this case I am afraid they really blew it! A couple them are too 'young' and limited and the PoTC online seems to be too far out in content to appeal to the entire family. I am still looking PoTC over, but the more I see over the last couple of days, the more I am uncomfortable with the content.

One of the rending issues is the potential loss of friends in this Intercot group, with pockets of us probably going in different directions. That is ...sniff... the very worst part of the whole thing!

Our kids are really ticked off with Disney over this one. As much as everyone in our family really likes Disney related things and parks, I can see an appreciable cooling in the kids' attitudes when the topic of Disney comes up. We have spent some great family vacations (with the associated pile of money) at WDW. Unfortunately, this episode is leaving a bit of a bitter taste in the kids' mouths, when it comes to the Disney name. I am sure they will grow out of it, but until then...

[Chescat]

Well a bunch of us signed up for the free version of Club Penguin last night. And we love it. We can talk, we can dance, we can emote, we can play games. We even got Genie in there dancing.

[terri.m]

I signed up for penguin too but haven't found anyone yet.

I wanted to be Tea there but it had to be at least 4 characters. So i'm aka Tea!!

[JPL]

Aww no Figgie Penguin

[terri.m]

How about cookie penguin?

[Chescat]

I couldn't get chescat or ratcat either. Had to go with my pirate name. I like cookie penguin!

[Patricia]

I think we have a penguin named Spookum?

I'll have to go in and see.

[WDWizard]

I just tried that Club Penguin game, and it's horrible.. You can only talk to people with pre-set words and phrases (and we thought VMK's dictionary was bad...) and there isn't much to do. I'm also not too impressed with Pirate's and Toontown.

Disney pays all this money to acquire Club Penguin, but they discontinue a game that they already have that is much better -- VMK.

I hate it how they closed the game so abruptly, too. If I were in charge I would keep VMK open for the summer, when so many kids play since they are off from school, and promote it as "The Final Summer of VMK" with crazy events, giveaways, etc. then close the game in August/September by the time kids are back in school.

The likely reason why they closed it is because this game was only meant as a promotion for DL's 50th. The game stayed beyond that because of it's popularity, but as we saw previously with the discontinuation of in-park quests and no more park-related promotions, they realized that they were putting money into the game while they were getting no income out of it.

You can't really blame the "big evil Disney corporation" for doing this, though, it was a budget cut and I guess they felt that they didn't want to continue to put in the work and money to run the game. The only reason Disney's other games have survived is because they require paid memberships.

Good thing we still have Intercot to keep in touch, though, while other's might lose their VMK friends forever.

(P.S. my penguin name is Wizzardd)

[chrisb26]

I just tried that Club Penguin game, and it's horrible.. You can only talk to people with pre-set words and phrases (and we thought VMK's dictionary was bad...) and there isn't much to do. I'm also not too impressed with Pirate's and Toontown.

The likely reason why they closed it is because this game was only meant as a promotion for DL's 50th. The game stayed beyond that because of it's popularity, but as we saw previously with the discontinuation of in-park quests and no more park-related promotions, they realized that they were putting money into the game while they were getting no income out of it.

(P.S. my penguin name is Wizzardd)

I think you signed up for the wrong type of thing on Club Penguin there were two options when signing up. One was a Parent Control option where you couldn't type anything only use the presets however the one I used and many others that have signed up there allows you to say many things. In fact you can say much more in Club Penguin then you can in VMK.

I also have no doubt the reason the game is closing is because of money isn't that what always makes things happen? The old saying does go "Money Makes The World Go Round" however I wish this wasn't true

[Patricia]

Hmm.. apparently, we have a spookum and an icotpatti penguin. These characters are both played by my daycare kids.. so, it may not be me if you see them. I'll try to limit the kids to spookum to eliminate any confusion.

patti belongs to someone else.. so, if you see her, it's not us.

Club Penguin is geared towards very young children. There's not really much to do if your over ten. My little kids enjoy it as they don't have to build or type to have fun. They love the games. The kids nine and over were all huge VMK fans.

Wizard.. did you sign up for the safe chat accidently? There are two options.

[WDWizard]

I probably signed up for safe chat, but even without it, the game still does not do much for me. As Patti said, it's not so fun if you're over the age of 10, so I dont think I'll be playing. There also seems to be a "WDWizard" on Club Penguin, so if you see him..that's not me

Things I'd like to do:

Virtually hit WDWIzard over the head and boot out of my room
Destroy his ride rooms myself

Destroy my ride rooms? That can be arranged

I say we start a "Things you'd like to do before you [virtually] die" thread, haha.