Alia's Interviews: Trolling Lessons with the King

Since I decided to go public with my blog I started hounding my game friends to help out with guest blogging or other types of submissions...when that made a few nervous, the persistent Aunty A decided she was going to run people down to the ground and make them talk!  Some force was used, maybe a few bribes, and now results are starting to trickle in...


While I have the "Mother of all Interviews" to appear soon, I am going to start this blog segment with the "Son of all Interviews."  Victim #1: im ur king.


As one of the few players who have a working friend list at the moment, im ur king was able to show up to my "pad" (new phrase he learned from me today) where the grilling could begin.

Like any good gamer, im ur king was distracted by the
Retro Console so I had to get him back on track!

The first order of business was for my interviewee was that I asked him to take to me his very favorite place in MilMo without telling me first.  Destination: Ancient Forest.

OK, now down to business!

Or maybe not!  The im ur king Fan Club descended
almost immediately upon our arrival. Tough work
being a MilMo celeb!

Once the groupies were politely lavished with greetings and such, I was able to bring my subject back to the task-at-hand and asked him why he liked Ancient Forest the best. King (sorry to shorten your name, but it just easier this way!) likes AF because of the many monsters there to work on medals, but he likes the addition of the Mad Weed boss because "it is entertaining to kill."  I do not agree because I can not kill that thing! Our exchange about the Mad Weed went like this:

[im ur king]: the most challenging boss is the skull and that weed.  The weed is sooo fun.

[Alianore]: he is awful!

[im ur king]: he is challenging.  

But each to his own, and obviously King has some master skills that I do not....

With all of my interview subjects that I call friends, we spend a lot of time talking about how MilMo has changed since we have been playing.  King has been playing for about 2 years so he has seen many changes: growth of the game, players who have come and gone, and game design.  For some of us players the languages of the players has changed greatly over the last year, and while that is a a good thing, I agree with King that it is harder to help and play with others with the language barrier.  Like many of MilMo's older players, the lure of MilMo is the game community...having fun playing and making friends, which is a different challenge nowadays.  When asked about his earliest MilMo memory, his response was "my first day and meeting Mike Killer."  Mike helped him early on in the game, and they eventually moved onto being friendly rivals...and he misses him and that rivalry.


One of King's more enthusiastic responses was in regards to the question, "What do you think are good changes [to the game]?"  Rapidly he responded with, "the awesome change with the trunks [redesign], the new place here [The Dunes], the devourers..., wurmlings..."  Also our King likes the new player abilities, which he summed up with "the more abilities the better."  I second that motion!  Lastly on the positive-side of changes, King likes the gold coin system because "coins are nice, they allow new members to buy stuff," but he would like to see a return of the voucher system for members rather than the star tokens.


In the realm of changes that resulted in things that King now misses, other than some of the old players, are the floating platforms on Treehouse Island (don't we all!) and the bee stripes from Mushroom Forest.  But what he misses the most are the rusty and heroic weapons that were earned as you proceeded along through the game.  


From what was the ways of the past naturally merged into the subject what changes our subject did not especially care for which included: the apparent weakening of the Mechalon boss, the spawning of Corrupted Dinos and Trunks at Ancient Forest ("it is too much"), the increase of prices in the Cash Shop, Alien Ruins (too long to complete and "once ur done nothing to do"), and the limitation of leveling at the current 21.  But with criticism also comes great suggestions for the game.  On the personal front, King would love a cape to go with his Darth Vader costume and a crown that can be purchased in the Cash Shop, but for the game in general he shared his vision of a new type of PvP arena:

A mini one, you and your friends go in it...fight some hard bosses, like 5 Visitor bosses...and if you both die you get out.

Lastly, our interview closed with the subject of im ur king's reputation.  For those of you who may not have come across our interviewee, he is known by a couple of nicknames: Troll King and Skull Jerk.  

Kazey Jean's anime tribute to im ur king.

While he has angered some people by being a posting/chat troll, King enjoys his reputation as King of the Trolls largely "cuz it's fun."  And he has spared no one with his trolling, even our game developers at "meet the devs" events.  He and I shared some serious respect for Sara who has failed to react/get angry from his persistent trolling, most people cannot withstand the pressure and give in to feed the troll!  While I will not share some of the helpful hints King gave to me on how to be a troll master (should I ever decide to pick up the practice), it is important to know that his trolling is out of (partly) boredom and the need to make things interesting and to get people talking/involved again.  And if he gets a few laughs out of it, then it is all good for him.  The "Skull Jerk" nickname came from our own Miss Kazey Kat, as King explains, "cuz Kazey was jelly I got this":

Sporting the top medal prize
for Skulls: Skull Mask.

As the time was getting late and King had to rest up for another day of trolling and other fun, our interview came to a close.  My hour and a half with im ur king was filled with great conversation and I learned a lot about his history with MilMo.  And despite the trolling (or even because of it) I am glad to call him friend.