And this is
exactly what I logged in to look for; reports from Opera users who can't load the game with the newest version, which is 36. (It updates itself automatically, and there's nothing you can do about it without special measures. )
Opera isn't big on publicizing changes to their browser, but if you check their
version history, you will see that they officially dropped support of NPAPI plug-ins (including Shockwave Player) in version 33. I know that it was still working through version 35 on my computer, so I'm guessing it was a gradual process, similar to the way that Chrome did it.
The following solution should only be tried if you use Opera exclusively for MyVMK; I would not advise using a previous version of the browser for anything else, as you will not have the most current security patches and bug fixes.
1. Download an older version of the browser from their website:
http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml/?os=windows&list=all . (If you choose version 35 it will work with MyVMK; I chose version 32 just to cover my bases since it's the last one listed before they "officially" discontinued NPAPI support. )
Important; do not install it yet.
2. Uninstall your current version. You will be asked if you also want to uninstall your user folders as well; I chose to do that as I suspected they might contain files related to the auto-update function.
3.
Disconnect from the internet, whether you are on wifi or plugged into an ethernet connection. This will prevent the auto-update function from being able to complete when you install the browser.
4. Install your chosen version while disconnected, making sure to deselect the boxes under "Options" at the beginning of the installation wizard, on the left side of the screen. ("Make this my default browser", etc. )
5. In Windows Explorer, find the Opera folder under your AppData. For me on Windows 7, the path was C:\Users\(name)\AppData\Local\Programs\Opera. Open that and look for the folder with the version name; in my case "32.0.1948.69". Open that and look for these three files, towards the bottom:
opera_autoupdate
opera_autoupdate.licenses
opera_autoupdate.version
What you need to do is right-click each of these files and select "rename"; I changed mine to
opera_autoupdate0
opera_autoupdate0.licences
opera_autoupdate0.version
(Added numeral zero after the word "auto_update". I wouldn't recommend trying to add it after the words "licenses" and "version", as you will get a popup warning about making the file unstable. )
6. Now you can reconnect to the internet. Open the Opera browser, click on the red "O" icon in the upper left-hand corner, and click on "About Opera" in the drop-down menu. It will bring up a page displaying your current version, with the text "An error occurred while checking for updates" after the version number. (This is what you want to see! ) If version 36 is displayed instead of the version you downloaded and installed, you will need to repeat this process, making sure you follow each step exactly.
I hope this will be helpful to all Windows users, as our options for playing the game are rapidly diminishing.