Maybe I am your friend
Torn is another mmorpg, but unlike KoL it is very hostile, a kinda dog eat dog mmorpg. This is likely because Torn is set in a gritty city with lots of crime and the like.
Interesting, Torn has a larger playerbase, yet seems to be even less known than KoL. For reference Torn has about 3000-6000 players online at any given time, whereas KoL only has 200-300 on at any given time.
I've made it a point to not spend any real world money on Torn. I can get where you are coming from in terms of money, I've probably donated enough money to KoL to buy myself a PS5. KoL is the original Asymmetric game that made a profit. (They made some games before, but they seemed to be made just for fun.) In fact KoL funded WoL. What's rather sad is that Jick, (the creator of KoL), had some allegations thrown at him which turned out to be true, so a bit of the core community left around 2019. (I forget when it precisely went down.) There's still a playerbase, but it seems like noone even knows that KoL exists anymore. Jick did make it so that a portion of every Mr. A (a donation item that costs $10) would go to a charity. I forget what charity that is, but it seemed to be chosen due to what he did in the past. More people than him work on the game 'though, but like I said it is never talked about anymore. So it's unsure if it'll ever find a large group of new players. Personally I don't condone anything that Jick did in his past, but it would be a shame if KoL just flat out dies. There's a lot of content in it, and the playerbase is the best one I've ever been a part of. My apologies for the long rambling, I probably should have collected my thoughts a bit more.
