Guangdong, Cn.–Unpopular Chinese gaming company HappyMMO has swindled roughly twenty-five gamers out of their American money in a bid to relieve personal economic hardships abroad using a “game” known as Elf Online, an MMORPG in which people get together, set up shops, and do quests with each other while an unknown entity reaps the unseen profits funneled in when users are forced to purchase in-game items in order to advance their characters.
In Elf Online, U.S. currency is traded for worthless in-game items and charm potions (US $20) that give users “1500 affection”, a meaningless statistic that arbitrarily changes a pet’s willingness to do what one says. Pets are “captured” for US $20 and offer no in-game advantages.
The official Elf Online Forums have fallen into disuse as one spammer by the name of “SidorooloFrom” generated thirty-five pages worth of posts containing links to pornography, pharmaceutical advertisements, and internet dating sites that don’t really exist.
Investigation reports broken English and poorly put-together sentences throughout the game, even on the opening screen, where the user must click, “STRAT GAME” in order to enter the mysteriously empty Elven world.
The website, happymmo.com, which is almost unnavigable due to its poor English and sparse Chinese dropdown menus, is registered to Chinese citizen Lin Yong, a known scam-artist and child pornographer who has not been publicly available for comment since May, 2008, when users began demanding both forum and in-game moderation in the wake of neglect.
