Talk:Kingdom of Loathing

Confusing / Needs cleanup

I am a KoL player, and I have tagged this page as confusing. For someone unfamiliar wiht KoL, this page does not give an informative introduction to KoL, what it is about, and why it is awesome. The text just leapts to specifics about ascension, white Wednesday, black Sunday and even mentions Hangk's already in the first paragraph of the History section. I think this page needs re-writing to be more useful to the uninitiated, but I think there should be a discussion first. (Raxolotl 21:02, 10 March 2006 ((UTC))

I'd be willing to write a paragraph or two about it, I'll volunteer. Give me some time to write something up. --'Ivan 13:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, you know what? There are 3 cases of supposed vandalism by the user Jinkso later in the same day you put your comment here. They are here, here and here. I have restored the content. --'Ivan 13:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Radio KoL / WKOL

Update: This time, I did edit the page. Here are my changes: (1) Removed the word "unfounded," because the controversy was centered on specific actions that the involved parties have admitted to doing. (2) The station was handed to me and Fusi from Sev, yes. We had "control" of it for all of 48 hours or so, but gave it to those who had already been running things. (3) "Jick and Skullhead supported this new station," is an inaccurate statement, as there was not yet a new station. There was no fear of a lack of a station for the "future of their project." There was just Radio KoL with an ownership change. Haplo3k 14:14, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

While I did not edit this page and I don't know yet who did, I know the reasoning for the edit: The previous version of the Radio KoL history included a factual error (that the station was "taken over" by administration, when actually SeveredToe handed the station over voluntarily (as he posted in the Radio KoL forums here.)) I was going to do this edit myself, but someone got to it before me (Wikipedia wasn't loading right for me last night.)

I couldn't tell you why (s)he performed the other edits (s)he did, but I can say that truthfully I believe the article is now less gossipy and more informative. --Haplo3k 13:19, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Quick Correction

I'm fairly certain that in November 2004, meat wasn't leaving the economy by 1/5 to 1/10 of the total per day. I went back and checked the forum, it was in fact, 1/5 to 1/10 of a percent. The page has been updated so.

Clans gone

Since this is something people are (apparently) never going to agree upon (even Contr!ckster's fairly well thought-out clan listing was disputed heavily), I've removed all mention of specific clans and their associated prestige.

Economy health

What with the Penguin Mafia all but a memory and the related meatsinks (Council donations, Uncle P's, etc) gone or reduced in scope, should the paragraph that discusses the exploits of Black Sunday be changed to reflect that the economy's in a bit better health now? Or is it still basically under assumption that there's still more work to be done, billionaires aside? CaptainSpam 17:42, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Radio KoL

I believe Radio Kol is the "official unofficial radio station of KoL". Jick didn't want to be formally affiliated with Radio KoL, for fear of RIAA lawsuits. If such a lawsuit occurred, Asymmetric Publications would be free from any wrongdoing (or so they could argue). Therefore, the article should read that Radio KoL is an unofficial radio station. Metzgermeister 02:57, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

...is listed for deletion. Some people seem to vote to merge it here, but I believe they should be kept separated. You may express your opinion here. Grue 06:11, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Radio KoL was merged here recently. Just noting it. Hedley 22:03, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Personalities

That section was just repeats of what is said on the Radio KoL website. We want our information here to be concise, and not to replace our official sites, so I don't think it's necessary. Haplo3k 19:20, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

History of Loathing

I removed the link to the History of Loathing as it appeared on W23's site. All of that has since been rolled into KoL Coldfront, which itself is already listed. I thought it'd be a bit redundant to link in to subsections of Coldfront, so I removed the History link entirely. CaptainSpam 04:11, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC) (forgot to sign it)

Meat helmet

A long time ago, the Meat helmet was deleted, and this article was mentioned in the VfD vote casting field. Should we make a redirect for Kingdom of Loathing out of "Meat helmet"? --SuperDude 02:27, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

• The article was irrelevant to the article on KoL, and my comment was a joke. I doubt many people would search for a specific KoL item in Wikipedia. Grue 05:35, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Need to break up article

I added a "Gameplay and features" header, orphaning the opening paragraph. (It could probably be turned into an expanded summary.) The resulting new section could also use a lot more breaking up, but I'm not sure what subheads we could use here. --C-squared 20:50, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Logo dude

Doesn't that guy on the logo have a nickname? I think he does. Does anyone know it? If so, we should probably put that with the picture caption.

Tongo Zitheroo Ketchill (Better known as The Phantom Trogdor to all you KoLers.)

mini-apocalypse

Perhaps something should be added mentioning the accidental deletion of the database by Jick on Oct 25th and its impact on the game. Namely the reversion of several statistics and certain inventory to values backed up on Sept 6. -KSlayer 02:45, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. This seems to be the second coming of Black Sunday, so to speak, and should definately have at least a nod. Although we might want to wait a bit, just to see the overall ramifications on the economy... -Neovanglist 14:03, 28 October 2005

But this also could be an bigger ploy. Of course, he made it up to us by creating an Crono Trigger-style batch of new content. Creamy!

Crap

Try to keep coments on talk pages, .. not useless. Crap like this can go in your edit summery or just.. not said. Thanks Fresheneesz 06:17, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Changed Spelling

Specializes, not Specialises.

Aargh! The ghost of English language! In fact you don't have to bring on Talk page every little typo you fixed. You can also mark your edits as minor for such cases, because no significant change was made. Grue 19:00, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Clan

ffs people, stop editing Warehouse into Whorehouse etc. It's not really constructive.

Anonymous fix

Just quickly, I have made a minor edit giving a little extra information about the effectiveness of the "meatsinks". I think it's needed (as the state of the economy is a major bone of contention in the KoL community), but it could probably use tweaking. -- Anonymous KoL User.

Removed the excessive spoiler

As you can see below, the table is quite extensive. I removed it because it is irrelevant to the game itself. The article is info on the game, not a spoiler site. We don't need all the info on every item. I hardly believe that it is anyone's goal to look at this article for the purpose of spoiling oneself.

OMG, this table was ridiculous (and not even funny)! There is KoL wiki somewhere for that kind of stuff.  Grue  17:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok I can see how it was a spoiler. But there were parts that were useful. Can we keep the table without the descirptions and attacks columns? Fresheneesz 19:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

This is not encyclopedic content and not suitable for Wikipedia. Wikibooks probably accept such information (last time I checked...), so you may have better luck adding it there.  Grue  20:03, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you kidding? An encyclopedia shouldn't contain tables of information? Wikibooks is not for tabulating information, it is for TEACHING. Wikipedia is not for teaching, it is for reference. And a table such as the one I started would be a very good reference. Btw, who the hell would look up this obscure game on wikibooks anyway? 67.161.46.169 01:39, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

When was the last time you saw an encyclopedia with excessive tables? Never. And your last questions is also like asking "Who the hell would look up this game on Wikipedia?". It's more of a fact that people don't know, but they visit KOL pages anyways. -The Red Baron

Notice you quoted me wrong? try copy and pasting next time. I said "wikiBOOKS" not wikipedia. Obviously I looked up this game on here... And the last time I saw tables on wikipedia was on the article on resistivity, or on ANY article about a TV show (there is usually a table or list of episodes). There are many lists on wikipedia, and most everyone one tries to be a complete list. Excessive implies that it isn't appropriate, and I think that listing what items do, and how much they're worth is useful enough to be on this page. What exactly is the downside of adding non-spoiler information like that? Fresheneesz 02:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Notice how I wasn't quoting you? Serious, read my last statement. They don't know why they visit the link, they just do. The list was a list of excessive, unneeded spoilers. What you're attempting to do is to make a list of everything in KOL. We don't need that. It would be much easier to link to a spoiler site than to make a huge table.- The Red Baron

In anycase, you quoted that IP wrong (that IP was me). If you hadn't noticed, "spoiler" sites are pretty crappy and incomplete. Why do "we don't need that" ? I would find it very useful. Just because you don't need that doesn't mean other people don't. And who the hell are you talking about: "they don't know why they visit the link". What link, and .. who? BTW, I agree the list was excessive, spoilers aren't for the article, i made a mistake on that. But I don't consider item info, stats and effects, to be spoilers. Last comment: easier doesn't mean better. Try to make the easiest speaker driver you can think of - its gonna suck. Fresheneesz 11:07, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't quoting anyone, I was making a comparison. By your definition, what is a spoiler? We don't need a list off all the items in KOL. We need information on the game itself, and occurences in the game. From what I can see according to your reply, nothing is a spoiler. I would say that www.thekolwiki.net would be a good enough site to mention in the main article, so we don't need a huge clump of tables. Can you please carefully define what the word "spoiler" means to you, because we seem to have a misunderstanding of the word. The Red Baron

Ok, to me a spoiler (of anything) is something that dimishes the entertainment value of whatever entertainment you're spoiling. So, the "descriptions" and "attacks" I originally put on the table *are* spoilers, cause once you read them here, you don't need to read them in the game - and they are entertaining. However, listing practical things like the effects of items, and the power of weapons - even recipies - are not things I consider spoilers. If there is some way in the game to find out (other than trial and error) all the recipies in the game, then mebi a recipies section would be a spoiler. But item effects would be useful information to anyone that is wondering what their particular weird item does or can do.

Secondly, there are many spoilers already on wikipedia - but readers are given proper warning. If you don't want to contribute to this table, don't. But please stop deleting it, it is not vandalism, and is not incorrect information. Please tell me exactly why *you* personally think it doesn't belong on this page. 67.161.46.169 21:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

How is it any different to list what items effect are and such, as compared to attacks, when you are looking at spoilers? It both changes the value of gameplay. As you may have noticed, I have only deleted the spoiler table once.

If the people really want to spoil themselves, they can just go to the bottom of the article to find the links to the information. There is absolutely no point in having any spoilers on this article, because this article's purpose is to inform the people on KOL history, and the KOL community (like the clans), and not the specific material in the game (like the items). - The Red Baron

Spoilng something = decreasing value of gameplay. But I think the table would increase the value of gameplay by more easily allowing people to know what to do with their items. BTW, even if it *was* a spoiler, spoilers are allowed to be on wikipedia regardless of ANYTHING. And there *is* a point of having it in this article, because people might want to know that information. This article's purpose is NOT specific, it is to give general information on KOL.

It is ridiculous to keep this argument up, I don't care if you personally don't need this information, I think its good info. So quit deleting it. YOU DON'T HAVE TO CONTRIBUTE TO IT. Fresheneesz 01:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

One more thing, I noticed that in the day or so my edits were left up someone already was interested in adding to the tables. This says to me that people want this info on here. Fresheneesz 01:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean by "quit deleting it"? I've only deleted it once. As I've already stated before, we can link to another site, we don't need a huge table of an "irrelevant" topic. The Red Baron

You don't dictate what "we" need. I've created a separate article and linked to it. Fresheneesz 06:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Pretty Minor Thing

• Yeah. So this line: "Several times, jokes are made that [The Naughty Sorceress] is your mother, but whether she is or not is yet to be confirmed."

Not exactly... information. More like a joke that people won't get.

"A winner is you"

It's likely 'An adventurer is you' is a reference to the appearence of 'A winner is you!' in the animutation Irrational Exuberence rather than a direct reference to the game. Is there any quote offering evidence either way? Hrimfaxi 07:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• Probably unlikely. The Kingdom of Loathing has a lot of pop-culture references dealing with retro games. There's a text-adventure style mini-quest, ala Colossal Cave Adventure. One of the puzzles in the game requires having knowledge of the Konami Code. There's the eight-bit realm, where you fight monsters remniscient of old NES games. I think it's more likely that the game designers were inspired by the source. Also, the Kingdom of Loathing has been around since at least January of 2003 [1] - I'm relatively certain (but not positive) that the flash cartoon of which you speak was created sometime after that. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 06:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
• It's more likely that both KoL and the aforementioned animutation both reference the same thing, namely the engrish phrase in Pro Wrestling (video game). --Flatluigi 01:44, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Nah, the Irrational Exuberence video has been around since at least December 2001. I remember watching it my freshman year of college. It came out around the same time as the Yatta! video. I'm pretty sure "A winner is you!" was the inspiration. ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 22:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

• "A winner is you" was undoubtably the inspiration, but the original source for that is the NES game - Irrational Exuberance simply referenced that. I'm pretty sure KoL is referencing the original - the authors of KoL are rather fond of retro games, and the Kingdom is literally filled with references to them. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 00:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Doubling Up Mention of Hardcore

In the ascension paragrapg hardcore is mention twice once in the middle and once at the end with a "also" message. I'll remove the latter one.

Quest guide

Currently a user called Kiathe44 is adding a sort of quest "guide" - without an spoiler warning - to this article. Although I think it's good to describe some of the quests in the article, Wikipedia isn't the place for publishing walkthroughs, so I removed the content. mensch 20:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)