Community
Kingdom of Loathing has been praised for its welcoming and active player community. One of the most unique aspects of the community is the large number of female players: according to Johnson, approximately 40% of players are female. Fans often gather at both official conventions, run by Asymmetric, and unofficial player-organized meet-ups, including the annual KoLumbus event. Players support the game by writing scripts to perform various in-game functions, using Greasemonkey, Java, Perl, and Lua, and have also developed a player-run wiki which offers puzzle solutions and walkthroughs. Longtime player and nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot is active in the community and included a Kingdom of Loathing-themed song on his 2010 album Zero Day.
Brett Bixler, founder of the Educational Gaming Commons at Pennsylvania State University, has hypothesized that the Kingdom of Loathing community is successful because it accounts for Richard Bartle's model of player personality types in massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, creating a balanced gameplay system that appeals to a wide variety of players. Researcher Martin Oliver addressed similar issues in a 2009 study of the Kingdom of Loathing player community, Playing Roles in the MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing
A Web-based SHOUTcast radio station, Radio KoL, is the "official unofficial" radio station of KoL. It is a 24/7 DJ-hosted station, with volunteer DJs drawn from the KoL user base. Twice weekly, development team members host shows on Radio KoL in which they discuss the state of the game and answer questions from players.
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Famous quotes containing the word community:
“As blacks, we need not be afraid that encouraging moral development, a conscience and guilt will prevent social action. Black children without the ability to feel a normal amount of guilt will victimize their parents, relatives and community first. They are unlikely to be involved in social action to improve the black community. Their self-centered personalities will cause them to look out for themselves without concern for others, black or white.”
—James P. Comer (20th century)
“There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.”
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965)
“Populism is folkish, patriotism is not. One can be a patriot and a cosmopolitan. But a populist is inevitably a nationalist of sorts. Patriotism, too, is less racist than is populism. A patriot will not exclude a person of another nationality from the community where they have lived side by side and whom he has known for many years, but a populist will always remain suspicious of someone who does not seem to belong to his tribe.”
—John Lukacs (b. 1924)