Webkinz® Real Player
This is the how to guide for getting the most out of your Webkinz® account. Please note that this guide and the related software (the WK Real Player) are NOT endorsed, affiliated, or supported by Ganz™. The software discussed here is the WK Real Player known affectionately as WKRP and I am Les Nessman, winner of the coveted "Silver Sow Award" (for excellence in farm news reports). (I’m kidding, my name is Kevin).
Downloading, Installing or Updating the Software with wkrp_update.exe
The WKRP player can be purchased via EBay (usually one auction per week for super version) or directly at http://www.reil.ca/wkrp. One you have purchased the software, you will be sent a password for the version purchased. You will then need to download http://www.reil.ca/wkrp_update.exe. This software will allow you to download and install the player and will be used to download all future updates to the software as well. Download the link above and save it where you can find it. You will have an icon that looks like this.
wkrp_update.exe
If you use Windows Vista you will need to run the above program with Administrator privileges. (Right click on the icon and select run as an Administrator). Otherwise, double click on the icon. And you will see the following.
There are six steps (3 optional) in using the updater/installer. 1. Select your version (basic, deluxe or super) 2. [OPTIONAL] Check or uncheck beta release updates. If you check off the beta release button it will search if there is a newer (mid month) release and download it for you. The password should not have changed between full release and beta releases. 3. [OPTIONAL] Click check for updates. This will find the newest version for you but won't download it. 4. Enter the password I've sent you. (You can copy and paste it from your email). The password will be saved for you in case you need to download gain later. 5. [Optional] Change the location where you want the software installed. Default is a folder called WKRP on your desktop. 6. Press the update button. When you press the update button a file named wkrp_VERSION_DATE.sfx.exe will be downloaded and extracted (using the password you provided). On windows Vista, one common error that occurs (due to security settings) is that you get a black box on your screen that looks something like this.
What should happen next is that the title of this box changes to “Kevin is Helping” and your password is typed in for you. If this screen just sits there and you get an error saying “Install Failed” or “Is your password correct?” then you will need to type the password into this box yourself. To do this, simply click on this black box and type the password. Nothing will appear to be happening while you type, but just keep typing. When you have finished typing in the password press enter and viola, in the install folder you should see all the files you need. Here is what a fresh install should look like (basic and deluxe versions may have fewer files).
Running the Software
Double click on wkrp.exe.lnk or wkrp_super_20080620.exe appear. It will look something like this.
and the WKRP player will
The top line of buttons are always visible. Here is a those buttons do. Play!: “Play!” is the main button for the program. When you press that button, the player will switch to your Webkinz window and start playing games, earning money, winning trophies, shopping, feeding, daily chores, etc. Help: Gives some good first time use hints. By no means is this a complete help system. Login: Logs you into Webkinz (See WKRP tab) Logout: Logs you out of Webkinz
V1-V4: Changes the “view” of the player. V1 is basic view, V2 is Deluxe View, V3 is super view and V4 is my personal view. Super users can see V1-V4 (default V3), deluxe users V1-V2 and basic users V1 only.
The Goto Tab
The Goto tab is the tab you will see when the player first starts up. Here you select which games you want the player to play for you. By default, only games that can win you a trophy are selected. (Note that Candy Bash 1™ will only be a trophy winner in super version.) The tab looks like this:
The games are grouped into 4 categories and the category is listed after the game name. So for example, Booger Gets an A™ is listed as “5. Booger (4)”. “5.” indicates the game number (not important), “Booger” is the name of the game that I use (since Booger Gets an A is a trademark of Ganz) and (4) is the game category. Here is what the four categories mean. 1. (1) games are alpha releases. An alpha software release means that the software exists, is being tested but is not really ready for use. Don’t bother playing these games. 2. (2) games are beta releases. These games play OK but may have bugs, glitches and you may be able to play the game better yourself. Give these a try but I would not run them overnight. 3. (3) games play pretty well and almost certainly will play better than you possibly could (except cash cow 2™). These games can win you a lot of kinscash. 4. (4) games play at least as well as a (3) games and they will win you a trophy. Note that only Candy Bash 1™ will win you a trophy every time (super users) while others will win you a trophy every N games where N could be up to 400 (Go Go Googles™ for example).
To select the games you want to play, simply click on the check box next to the game name. Checked games will be played (randomly) from the list of checked games. There are also six buttons across the top of this tab. 1. Goto: Pressing this button will test and confirm that the player is picking games from your list. If you press it, a game will be selected from you list, the player will take you to the arcade, select a game and press play. However, the game will not actually be started. 2. Trophy: Pressing this button will toggle on and off your selection of trophy winning games (4). 3. Full: Pressing this button will toggle on and off your selection of trophy winning and money games (3) and (4). 4. None: Pressing this button will remove all games from your list. 5. Beta: Pressing this button will toggle on and off your selection of beta games (2). 6. Alpha: Pressing this button will toggle on and off your selection of alpha games (1).
The Schedule Tab
The schedule tab is divided in half. On the left is a list of “daily items”, or things you can (and should) do every day on Webkinz world. These include, 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Going to my pets and pressing, I love my Webkinz Spinning the Wheel of Wow Wishing at the Wishing Well A daily bonus question at quizzys corner Searching for gems at the Curio Shop (Deciding to keep or sell any gem you find) And giving Arte a tip.
On this part of the tab, put a check mark beside each item you would like to player to do for you. After each game it plays, one of these items may be selected and done for you. You may also press the “Daily Items” button to do them all selected items at once (in random order). In the right hand side of this tab are 14 “hourly” items to be done at scheduled times.
1. Feed time. The number you put in here determines how often your pet is fed for you. If you do a zero (0) in here, the player will not feed your pet for you (and when you wake up after the player plays all night your pet will be sick and very hungry). The default is 30 (minutes). Whenever a game ends, if it has been more than 30 minutes (or whatever number you choose) your pet will be fed for you 2. Change time. This number determines how long to play the same game. If you put a zero in here, the player will never intentionally change games. The default is 60 minutes. Whenever a game ends, if it has been more than 60 minutes since the last (intentional) game change, the player will go back to the arcade and pick a new game from your list. 3. Logout time. This determines how many minutes to play games before logging out and taking a break. The default is zero (never/disabled). Whenever a game ends, if you have been playing games for more than the specified number of minutes, the player will log you out of webkinz world. 4. Break Length. This determines how long you should wait before logging back into webkinz world. The default is 15 minutes. After you get logged out or the player logs you out based on aforementioned “Logout time” the player will wait this number of minutes before logging you back in. See WKRP tab for username and password. 5. Autostart. This determines how many minutes the player should sit idle (in event of an error, etc) before the player presses the “Play!” button for you. The default is zero (0) which means disabled. If the player has not been doing anything for this number of minutes, the player will automatically start playing games again. 6. Buy food. This number specifies how many pieces of food to buy before feeding your pet. The default is zero (0) or buy no food. In this case, you need to make sure you have adequate food in your “dock” to keep your pet fed. When a “feed time” occurs, the player will go to the W shop and buy this many items of food randomly from the last 9 pages of food (to avoid special pet foods). If you put in a negative number (say -3 for example) then one food item will be purchased from spot #3 in W shop food section (counting from the top left spot). This would allow you to select you pets favorite food, for example. 7. Buy Rares: This number specifies how many minutes to wait before going to curio shop to look for/buy rare items. The default is zero (0) which is disabled. I recommend using a number between 45 and 55 minutes. After a game finishes, if it has been more than 45-55 minutes since the last curio shopping experience, the player will go to the curio shop to buy rare items. See “Curio Shopper” setting (14) for more. 8. Screen: Specifies how often to capture an image of the webkinz screen. The default is zero (0) which means disabled. This is the only schedule item where you can use a decimal. A value of one (1), for example, would capture a screen image every one minute. This can allow you to record a “history” of what the player has been up to while you slept. 9. Max Caps: How many images to keep. Default is nine(9). The player will make images WKRP_100.bmp, WKRP_101.bmp, … WKRP_109.bmp. And then start replacing oldest files.
10. Whole screen. Default 0 which means capture only the Webkinz Window. Setting it to (1) means capture your entire desktop in the image. 11. Capture Format: 0) means bmp, 1) mean jpg and 2) means gif 12. Nothing yet 13. Curio Delay: How many seconds to wait after alerting user of a pending purchase in curio shop. This allows you to cancel a purchase if you happen to be near you computer. Any number less than 3 will give you 3 seconds. 14. Use the “curio shopper” feature. Leaving this at the default of zero (0) will cause the top left item to be purchased every time the “Buy Rares” schedule occurs. On the curio tab you will find a list of all of the rare and curio shop only items available for sale. If you set this setting to (1) the player will look at each item in the curio shop and if it recognizes it, and it is in your list of things you want, it will buy it. It will not buy anything that it does not recognize. Setting this to (2) is for super users only. The player will do the same as (1) but the player will loop through every account you have in your account list (wkrp2.ini) and shop for each account. (3) is the same as (1) except that the top left item (rare spot) will be purchased everytime unless it is recognized and you have selected to not buy that item on the curio tab. (4) is the same as (3) and again only for super users. (3) will be run on all accounts.
WKRP Tab
This tab is mostly for debugging problems, etc but also has some powerful buttons. 1. Update: Will run wkrp_update.exe and will download the latest version if it is missing. 2. Diagnose: If the player is not playing, etc, press this button before emailing for help as it may tell you what is wrong. 3. Screen cap. Captures an image of the webkinz window in the format you selected on “Capture Format” on schedule tab. 4. Window cap. Captures an image of your entire screen in the format you selected on “Capture Format” on schedule tab. 5. Curio Shopper: Will take you to the curio shop and buy any items you selected on curio tab (or top left). Depends on your “Curio Shopper” setting from schedule tab. 6. Daily Items: Will do all of the daily items you selected on the schedule tab (in random order). 7. Defaults: Will reset all of your game playing parameters to the basic (default) version settings.
8. Super!: Sets all your game playing parameters to super settings (really good). Deluxe users will see a deluxe button instead and basic users will no see this button at all 9. Super Curio Shopper: Will log you out and if you are a super user with accounts listed in in wkrp2.ini file will log in to each of those accounts and perform curio shopper. Essentially, this is a way to run manually the shopping that will occur when setting “Curio Shopper” on schedule tab to (2) or (4). It looks at the “Curio Shopper” setting on schedule tab to determine how to shop. 10. Super Daily Items. Will log you out. If you are a super user with accounts listed in in wkrp2.ini file it will log in to each of those accounts and perform daily items as listed on schedule tab. For example, this way you could make sure all 15 of you accounts did their gem hunt today. 1. Calibrate: Every browser (firefox, internet explorer 6, internet explorer 7, etc) looks a little different. Press this button to calibrate the program to your browser. This is done automatically for you when you press play, but if things are not working properly, you can press this button to make sure calibration is not failing. 2. Yoffset and Xoffset. For Firefox 2.0 these should both be zero. Internet explorers should end up with a small positive Xoffset and something like -29 for Yoffset. They will both say zero until calibration has been run. 3. Force Calibration: Don’t check this box unless you are told to by me. 4. Prefer IE. If you run both firefox and internet explorer, the player will prefer firefox (as should you) unless you specify otherwise here. 5. Launch: press this to test “Browser Launch” feature. Browser launch will start firefox or internet explorer for you if and when needed (if launch is enabled). This button lets you test that the feature works for you. 6. Dump data. Allows a file called dump.txt to be created and create a log of everything the player does. This feature is disabled. 7. Debug level. Allows you to adjust how many messages appear in the 6 info lines at the bottom of the player. Don’t bother. 8. Launch. Check this to allow player to launch you browser window for you. 9. Fast change. This is useful if, for example, you have a asian and north American account. During the nightly maintenance, if your north American account tries to log in, it will fail and the player will wait “break time” minutes (from schedule tab) and then try again. If fast change is enabled, instead of waiting break time, the player will load the next user from wkrp2.ini file (super users only) and try to log in with that account instead. 1. Load User: Will load (randomly) the next user from the wkrp2.ini file (super users only). 2. Username: Lists the current user name. Basic and deluxe users would type in their username here if they wish to user the “autologin feature”. Super users can do the same, or let the player load random users from wkrp2.ini file. 3. Password: Will say “Got it!” if the password for current user is already known. Basic and deluxe users would type in their password here if they wish to user the “autologin feature”. Once you stop typing, your password will disappear and “Got
It!” will appear. Super users can do the same, or let the player load password when a random users is loaded from wkrp2.ini file.
Garden Tab
My free webkinz gardening tool (http://www.reil.ca/wkrp_garden.exe) is quite popular. That tool was built for the player and is included here. It provides two services. First, it will tend your garden. To do this, go to your garden and start gardening. Your garden tool window (harvest, dig, rake, water, inspect) should be visible. Then press the top button. Your garden will be inspected, harvested, dug, raked and watered (in that order). The process then repeats until everything is finished. You may choose which items not to do (many people choose not to water since it does not appear to matter and takes so long). Second, the tool will help you sell your produce. Make sure your produce is visible in your dock. Then go to the W-Shop and press Sell. Next press the bottom button. The
first nine items of produce will be loaded into W-Shop and the mouse will dance around on the sell button until you click sell. The next nine items are then loaded and process repeats. You check below the button to have the player press sell for you. (If you have a 1000 strawberries I recommend this). In that case, the player will keep loading and selling your produce until it has all been sold.
Curio Tab
The curio tab provides a list of all rare and curio shop items. (And it recognizes most of them). On the right you can tell the player to buy all or none of the items in each of the rare categories. By pressing the + sign on each category a list of items of that type is shown. Highlight an item and a check box allowing you to select buy/don’t buy this item will appear near the bottom of the tab. Items listed in bold will be purchased if found in the curio shop during a “Buy Rares”/”Curio Shopper” from schedule tab event. Your selections are saved between sessions in the wkrp1.ini file.
Money Tab
The money, trophy and beta tabs each allow users to adjust game playing parameters. Use the Deluxe, Super and Default buttons from the WKRP tab to change the settings for all games or tweak them here. Hold your mouse over a parameter title and a quick help will appear. Super users can also list parameters for each game in wkrp2.ini
WKRP2.ini – Super Users Only
Probably the best feature of the super version is the wkrp2.ini file. This file allows you to specify your preferred schedule, wkrp and game parameter settings. It also lets you list multiple user accounts each with their own settings. Best of all, the player starts up just the way you like it every time. If you own the super version, you should see a file called wkrp2_Edit_Me.ini with you player. Edit that file and rename it or save it as wkrp2.ini.
wkrp2_Edit_Me.ini wkrp2_Edit_Me.ini
# Edit this file to your liking and "Save As" wkrp2.ini # (Or rename to wkrp2.ini, etc) # (Usernames and passwords at the end) ############################################ # Hourly items ############################################ hour1=45 # Feed time # - How many minutes between feeding your pet. hour2=12 # Game change time # - How many minutes before picking another game to play. hour3=73 # Logout time # # How many minutes before logging out for a break hour4=7 # Break Length # # How many minutes between login attempts or after logout time hour5=10 # Autostart time # # How many minutes before the program presses play for you. hour6=5 # Set to N=1-9 to buy # # (and feed) N food for pet every feed time. # # Items are selected from the LAST 7 pages of food # # to avoid "special food" 0=off -N=buy from spot N hour7=55 # Curio buy time # # How often to buy top left item (or curio shopper) # # in curio shop (rares are always top left) 0 to turn off hour8=0 # Time in minutes between window captures. 0 means off. hour9=0 # Max caps. WKRP_100.bmp, 101, 102, ... hour10=0 # Set to 1 to capture whole screen hour11=0 # 0=BMP, 1=JPG, 2=GIF hour12=0 # Nothing yet hour13=5 # Set a delay for curio shopper. It will pop up a # # window giving a nearby user the chance to opt in # # or out of a purchase. hour14=2 # 1 means use curio shopper instead of just buying # # top left item. 2 means run curio shopper on ALL accounts ############################################ # Daily items
############################################ daily1=1 # Change to 1 to have player press # # "I love my webkinz" once a day. daily2=1 # Change to 1 to have player play Wheel of Wow daily daily3=1 # Change to 1 to have player play Wishing Well daily # #(careful, it's not ready to handle 3 wells in middle # # (exclusive item)) daily4=1 # Change to 1 to have player attempt the Daily bonus # # Quizzy question daily5=1 # Change to 1 to have player do your gem hunt daily6=0 # Change to 1 to have player sell any gems it finds # # (you don't need the money) daily7=1 # Change to 1 to have player tip Arte $100 a day ############################################ # Game selection and game play parameters ############################################ super=1 # Press the super! button # # (set all parameters to super level) goto=13,21,5,9,-7,14,32 # A list of the games you want the player # # to play for you. Trophy winning games are # # on by default. Turn a game off with -ve # # number. -7 turns off candy 1. gamep=5,22,523,0,3,36,97,1 # Game 5 parameters(Booger gets an A) gamep=13,7,1,1,1,0 # Game 13 (Goobers lab) gamep=14,6,113,0,1 # Game 14 (Skunk Sweeper) ############################################ # Misc ############################################ browserlaunch=0 # Allow WKRP to launch your browser for you #playeroff=23,1.0 # Disable the player at 11:00 pm for 1.0 hours #playeroff=0.0,0.5 # Disable at 12:00 am (midnight) for 1/2 hour fastuserchange=1 # Change user on login failure # # (US->Asian account for example) ############################################ # Users - Make sure these stay at end of file ############################################ user=username # Your username (no space before or after equal sign) #pass=password # Your password (no space before or after equal sign) # List parameters specific to this user here #user=username2 # Your username (no space before or after equal sign) #pass=password2 # Your password (no space before or after equal sign) # List parameters specific to this user here