Interview With a Beta Player

Hey Jammers! Third day posting in a row WOOP WOOP :O

I'm back again with yet another promised posting topic: interview with a beta player. As I said before, my longtime buddy Gogreen16 was a beta tester back in 2010 and has played AJ ever since. She has a very good memory of her experience, so I thought she would be perfect to interview for all of you!

For those who don't know, Animal Jam's beta testing period went from July 17th to September 9th of 2010. While many things from beta still remain today, it was the first "version" of Animal Jam and was remarkably different.

Because the community was very very small at the time, very few screenshots, videos, or players from beta testing remain. In this way, Gogreen16's memories are incredibly valuable for anyone curious about Jamaa's history!

So, without further ado, here is the full interview!

Question 1

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Me: What's something that most people don't know about beta testing?

Gogreen16: Well, one thing I remember the most that a lot of people don't know is somewhat beta, but only lasted for about half a year. 

Every once in a while a staff member from AJHQ would come and visit Jamaa and answer questions and just have fun with the others. 

They had this special little badge on their nametag. One even came to my den once. I don't quite remember what they called themselves.

Me: Are you talking about guides?

Gogreen16: Yeah! Guides! I'm pretty sure that's what they were called. Not a lot of people remember them. 

Fun fact: I remember when the beta testing ended, everyone's 30 day trial of membership ended. Lots of people were upset. So whenever a Guide would come around, people would just pester them for membership XD

Me: Maybe that's why Guides went away XD

Gogreen16: Yeah that might be why they stopped doing that.

Question 2

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Me: What were some of your favorite things about beta AJ?

Gogreen16: Can I list three things? 

Me: Sure :)

Gogreen16: One: the free membership, obviously lol. Hmm... let me think...

Me: Awhile ago you told me how you really liked the nature facts

Gogreen16: Yeah! I was just about to mention that! :O

So two, the nature facts. And three... since Animal Jam was my first multiplayer game, I would have to say just being able to make all sorts of cool friends!

(even if it was hard to talk with them using bubble chat lol)

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Me: Wait, so did everyone use bubble chat?

Gogreen16: Well... sort of. I'm not entirely sure, but I think you could get a free trial of it. Or maybe it was extremely cheap and I didn't know about it.

I wanna add a fourth favorite thing, if you don't mind: the mystery and lore to the game. It wasn't as extensive as it is today, but back then it had a simple story to it that made it more interesting for me and many others.

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Gogreen16: Since the game was still very small and had only one server (Well, about one server, I'm not entirely sure) you could run into the same person multiple times. The small amount of players made the experience feel more special, kind of like a family.

Question 3

(Image credit: The Jammer in this image had an AJ blog, but it's no longer viewable.)

Me: What do you remember about the beta medical center?

Gogreen16: Ooohhh man XD One word: chaos...

This was one of the first places where roleplaying took root. Imagine this: there are jammers everywhere, each one suffering from sicknesses and injuries. The Jammers roleplaying as doctors are literally doing anything everything to keep the Jammer alive, but no matter what they do, they always die.

So basically, the whole thing was a mess, but... a fun and hilarious mess.

Me: Was there music in the medical center?

Gogreen16: Yes, but it was very faint, much like the Chamber of Knowledge. I don't remember exactly what it sounded like.

Me: I remember there was an audio file that surfaced which was rumored to be the medical center music except it sounded like saws and equipment...?

[NOTE: I've been looking for the YouTube video that had the music and can't find it right now, sorry D:]

Gogreen16: Actually, now that I think about it, I think the music sounded a bit like that... but I can neither confirm nor deny this.

[NOTE: On the AJ Wiki page for the beta Medical Center, it says the audio was quiet voices and the sound of tools being used, but it unfortunately does not provide a link to the audio]

Question 4

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Me: What was your opinion about Coral Corner? (The pottery shop in Coral Canyons)

Gogreen16: So when Coral Canyons first came out, it really added to the magic. The one problem I had with it was that all it had were printable coloring games and pages. I wasn't really into those. Regardless, I often went there just to listen to the music–

Wait a minute, you meant that pottery shop! From what I can remember, it just seemed like a regular shop to me. It was afterwards when they changed it to a den shop did I realize how much I appreciated it. I still miss that shop...

Me: Ceramics are my favorite AJ items. 

Gogreen16: Same :( rip

Question 5

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Me: What in today's AJ reminds you of beta, if anything?

Gogreen16: The old map of Crystal Sands. Whenever I'm walking in Crystal Sands, I have flashbacks to the time they announced they were giving the land a makeover. I was pretty disappointed. 

Me: I wasn't around then, but pictures I've seen look amazing.

Gogreen16: The older map felt more peaceful. The landscape looked really amazing. I faintly remember going to the top of the cliff and just having my animal stare at the forest below. 

The only nitpick I had was that you couldn't go in the water.

Me: I've seen video of that, yeah XD

Question 6

Me: What's your favorite item from beta testing?

Gogreen16: Cami's Frog. I still have mine all the way back from the beta days. I have and never will give it up.

Me: Anything you'd like to add before we close the interview?

Gogreen16: I am completely shocked at how popular this game has become over the past eight years. Before it was just a small little community, now millions of people play it everyday. I'm happy it's managed to last a lot longer than most flash games...

I'm happy that I've made so many friends here. I don't regret staying one bit :)

Me: :'D

---

Big shoutout to Gogreen16 for letting me interview her!

It's amazing how much a single game can make us happy and leave such a lasting impact. I haven't come across any other game, online or otherwise, that has had such a strong pull on its community as AJ, inspiring us to come back year after year. :')

I hope you found this recounting of 2010-2011 era Jamaa interesting!

More posts coming soon... :D

How to Avoid Scamming/Deception

Hey Jammers! It's my second daily post of February break and I am ready to talk about one of the topics I made a note of yesterday: How not to get scammed. 

But first, here's the Rare Item Monday!

I'd like to give credit for this screenshot to Rainbow000Pegasus because this item is underwater and I don't feel like recycling my wolf right now. Let me know if this is okay!

As with most RIMs, I don't find this item very interesting, but it got me thinking: when was the last time there was a nonmember RIM?

EDIT: OOPS I seem to have missed their Rare Heart Bracelet post. Well this is embarrassing XD

So I did some digging through AJHQ's Instagram, because they update it very frequently...

Aaaaaand it seems the last nonmember Rare Item Monday was on November 19th of 2018. That's about... 

91 DAYS AGO ʘ‿ʘ

I should put a day counter on the side of this blog so any AJHQ member who hopefully stumbles upon my blog can get the message that we need more RIMs to be nonmember. 

*researches count-up widgets*

*30 minutes pass*

*finds some JavaScript code*

*copy and pastes it into a test widget*

*doesn't work*

I guess this is a project for another day (:

Anyways, let's get on to the main topic of this post:

Before we begin, I think it's important to define scamming vs. deception.

Scamming is using something other than the trade system to get someone's items. For example, asking someone to Jam-a-Gram you a rare item, promising that you will Jam-a-Gram them a rare item back... and not following through.

However... just straight-up asking for free items without promising anything in return is NOT scamming! Know the difference.

Deception is when you push another person to accept a trade they don't want to accept by convincing them that the item you're trying to trade is way rarer than theirs... while knowing it's not. Example: Trying to trade away a normal Tiara by telling someone it's a Tiara from beta testing.

Deception is a little trickier than scamming, because it's hard to know who exactly is being deceived. Someone might be saying that their normal Tiara is from beta because they themselves were tricked, and it's basically impossible to distinguish that from someone who actually knows what they are doing.

Funny story: When I was new to AJ, I was trying to trade for a Royal Blanket (which was super high-demand at the time) so I might have gone around Jamaa saying something like "Trading my Rare Tiara for a Royal Blanket!" because that was probably the rarest thing I owned. 

Later on, I decided to Google search my username and found that someone had apparently written me up on their anti-scamming blog for that and outed me as a scammer, even though I honestly just had no idea what I was doing XD

Let that be a lesson to all– don't do witch-hunts of people who you think are being deceptive! Just gently correct them– they may genuinely not know.

So, I have a bit of a different perspective when it comes to the idea of item worth. I talked about it a lot in this blog's Trading Post page.

Bottom line: Items do not have any set worth. 

People will disagree with me, but AJHQ themselves have said it. A fair trade is what you and your trading partner are both happy with.

So, what does this mean about deception?

You may have noticed that I defined deception as "pushing another person to accept a trade they don't want to accept" instead of "trading unfairly". 

This is because I don't believe in the concept of a fair trade– items are just pixels, and no matter how "fair" your trade is, people may still decline and you can't get mad at them for it. It's not like buying fruit at the store– you have to haggle if you really want an AJ item.

Of course, though, it isn't really this simple. Almost everyone you meet on AJ will believe in some kind of intrinsic item worth and regularly consult the AJ Item Worth Wiki, even if there is literally no way to accurately price an item. 

In the same way that dollars are basically worthless, AJ items are also basically worthless, but value is still arbitrarily assigned to them. People trade with the popular idea of worth in mind, because they know that it's something most people generally agree on, which will mean that the item they get can be used to trade up for something they actually want.

It would be so much simpler if people only traded for the items they really wanted, but everyone is kind of trapped in this paperclip system which forces us to take the popular idea of rarity seriously.

Well... I could go on and on about this unsolvable problem, but the main idea I want you to take away is this:

If you accepted a trade and were happy about it because you liked how the items looked, but then were told by a friend that it was not a fair trade, you were NOT deceived.

If you accepted a trade only because your trading partner told you that their item was just as rare or rarer than yours, all the while knowing that it wasn't, then you WERE deceived.

This is the part of the post where I tell you how exactly to avoid getting scammed OR deceived.

To avoid getting scammed...

– Only use the trading system to exchange items. No exceptions.

– If you Jam-a-Gram someone an item, DO NOT EVER expect them to give you back anything. 

– If you're at a "giveaway", leave as soon as someone asks you to Jam-a-Gram anything OR accept a trade with the promise of being Jam-a-Grammed an item.

– Even if someone is your best friend in the entire world, do not break these rules for them.

It's easy to avoid being scammed. It's not so easy to avoid being deceived, though. To avoid deception...

– Only trade if you like the look of the item you're getting and will not miss the item you're trading away. 

As you can tell, this is very hard because we're all trapped in the system of trading our way up to the items we actually want. It's hard to avoid or even detect deception, so the only possible solution is to step out of that paperclip system. Which is hard, but it's something to try.

This has certainly been a long post. If you guys have anything to add, please comment!

See you in Jamaa~

7 Years of DoomyPanda

Hey Jammers! I haven't posted in a while, but for the record I was actually busy and not just being lazy. I had to do a lot of stuff this past week, but now it is the weekend. In fact, my school is on its second winter break, so you can expect near-daily posting from this point until late this week! :D

But yeah, I've been so exhausted so I was just planning to use today to not do anything productive, but then I checked the date...

It is the 7-year anniversary of the first time I logged into AJ! 

Ah yes, February 17th 2012. I still remember it like it was yesterday...

My real-life best friend was really into AJ at the time and had been adamant that I make an account ASAP, even offering to let me use a spare account of theirs. 

Believe it or not, I had been skeptical and uninterested for a month or two prior. Having never seen the game, I assumed it was just one of those generic-looking Webkinz/Club Penguin/Poptropica clones that I was all too familiar with.

One Friday evening, however, I had some computer time and decided to use it to finally check out this website my friend loved so much.

The instant I saw the home page, I was instantly captivated. It must have been something about the earthy and mysterious background, or the subtle expressions on the animals' faces. It was all like nothing I had ever seen in a kids game before-- I was used to bright colors and forced cartoony expressions. This was different.

I didn't bother logging into my friend's spare account-- I immediately made a new account just for myself.

(This is not my image-- I just found it and included it so you can know what the make-an-account screen looked like in early 2012)

Countess Spookypanda, my main animal, was the first AJ animal I ever made. The second animal I ever made was a wolf named Wretched Spiritstar, which I periodically recycled and brought back depending on if I wanted to explore the oceans.

Here's the original design for my wolf:

I always liked how this specific pattern looks so soft and smooth.

And here's the original design for my panda:

I still use this design a lot, still, even if it is just purple swirls with a blue necklace. 

Again, these are not actual screenshots taken in 2012. I just have a ridiculously good memory when it comes to Animal Jam XD

I don't know if I ever fully explained my username, so I'll do it here:

Before I played Animal Jam, there was this fan website thingy devoted to one of my favorite things ever, Invader Zim. There was a chatroom on it where I went by the username DoomyDemon. It sounds like a weird name, but it's actually pretty generic for Invader Zim because "doom" is the word the characters use the most. There were probably other users with some variation of Doom in their names.

Anyways, when I made my AJ account I was very set on being a panda, so I knew I would not regret the username DoomyPanda because it combines my love of spooky aliens with the natural world. <3

If any of you newer players are wondering, prior to 2014-2015 you could put multiple capitalized letters in your username. Now you cannot, which confused me until I realized 5 seconds ago that people could sneak inappropriate words into their names through capitalization.

This reminds me of my old AJ buddy fSlHuEfEfPy. Their name made no sense to me until I realized that all lowercase spell "fluffy" and all uppercase spell "sheep" XD

(Again, not my image)

It seems the AJ community has some mixed feelings about Liza's old design, with many newer players being terrified of it and many older players (like me) very fond of it. 

There is a pretty stark comparison– new Liza looks cutesy (and weirdly skinny) in a style predictable for a kids game, while old Liza looks like a wise mentor with a unique earth-toned design who looks at least somewhat like an actual panda. 

I guess the shift went from "Jammers looking up to Alphas" to "Jammers personally relating to Alphas". Heck, Cosmo went from being an old guy with a beard to one of the youngest Alphas.

Just know that if old Liza scares you, new Liza scares me just as much.

When I first "spawned" into the world of Jamaa, I arrived in Coral Canyons. It was predictably laggy, but not too bad– I used to wait like 15 minutes for a single room on Webkinz to load. 

The first game I ever played was Long Shot. I struggled a bit with timing at first, but once I launched the armadillo I was surprised how far it went! I got at least two achievements and reached the volcano area on my first try. 

Long Shot will always have a special place in my heart. It doesn't involve much gameplay, but it sure is soothing. 

Fun fact! Once it gets warmer where I live, I should make a post all about how different animals keep cool in the summer. I like thinking about an armadillo escaping from the hot sun in a cool burrow <3

This is a reenactment of how I initially set up my den. EXCEPT, the spiral lamp was the default purple-black color because in 2012 nonmembers couldn't change the colors of items.

I also filled my den with folding Shoji Screens and Cat Banners because both were easily bought at the store at the time. I only have a couple left, but I think both are my favorite items.

Funny story: even though I knew my friend's username, I didn't think to search it up and send a friend request. I actually ran into them randomly at a Heatwave Party and added them as a buddy then! XD

As I explored the world of Jamaa more and more, my love for it only increased. I had always loved the Earth and its amazing plant and animal inhabitants, but playing Animal Jam increased my enthusiasm for my world by 100 times. It was around the time I joined AJ that I decided to start eating vegetarian, and later vegan. I don't really think this is a coincidence.

It sounds weird, and I know this doesn't happen with everyone who plays AJ, but it's because of AJ that I've decided to go into Environmental Studies in college and I have very clear goals relating to helping local ecosystems.


I don't have time to write a whole AJ autobiography, so imma stop this right here, but I hope you enjoyed!

Before I go, I want to share with you some ideas I have for future posts to make this week-- mostly so I'll remember them XD

1. Interview with a beta player -- My buddy Gogreen16 was actually a beta tester in 2010, but is still active on AJ and has a pretty good memory of what beta is like. I think an interview with them would be interesting considering how little screenshots or video there are of actual beta testing. (Psst... Rainbow, weren't you also a beta player? I'd love to interview you too, if you want :D)

2. How to not get scammed -- Pretty standard, I know, but people keep commenting on AJ Stream about how they were scammed so I feel like I need to clear some stuff up.

3. Snowyclaw appreciation post -- I really appreciate the contributions Snowyclaw has made to the AJ community through their current website Animal Jam Archives and their old blog Animal Jam Spirit. I'm also pretty sure that Snowyclaw is the reason why Alphas and lore have a bigger role in Jamaa than they used to (lore had a big role in beta, and then stopped being mentioned for a couple of years) so Snowyclaw is a very influential player even if they're not as active anymore. I also want to talk about the idea of "Jamaasian" they popularized with Animal Jam Spirit and what it means for Animal Jam today.

4. Generally more educational nature-centric posts. -- The game itself is currently lacking in the educational material which is at its foundation, so I hope I can compensate until AJHQ takes action. I have many interesting fun facts up my sleeve!

Alright guys, that's all for now. I'm very happy I made this post instead of watching anime or something. See you in Jamaa! :D

My Shops - Good or Bad?

Hey Jammers! Quick post today– I have way way way too much to do and I don't even know if I'll be able to finish it all.

This quick post is about the biggest feature brought to us by the newest update: My Shop.

Every single person in Jamaa Township right now is either advertising a My Shop or searching for a My Shop to browse.

Only members can buy a My Shop. I'm personally not that sad about that; it's cute-looking, but not "Jamaa-like" enough to make me want one.

Still, this is a very nice new feature! I bet this idea has been recommended by Jammers for a long time. Instead of recycling items for gems, you can sell them to each other for gems OR diamonds. It really changes the game for den-shops.

...but is that game-changing really all positive?

Here are a couple of things being sold in a My Shop. You can sell Masterpieces and pets, too! 

When I saw the Jamaaliday Musketeer Boots, I didn't recognize them and thought they were a December gift that I somehow missed. I clicked on them to buy them, and then...

ONLY MEMBERS CAN BUY FROM MY SHOPS

NOOOOOOOOO

Well, this is certainly a new reason to buy a membership: items once unattainable are now easily bought with a handful of currency!

I don't know about you, but before this update I didn't think AJ currency was very valuable. I had hundreds of Diamonds and thousands of Gems and there was barely anything in shops I was interested in buying.

Will My Shops increase the value of currency, or will they decrease the value of rare items?

Also, I think it's important to point out that prior to this update, most people with den shops were nonmember. Now, anyone advertising a den shop is most likely going to be a member referring to a My Shop.

I wonder what will happen to nonmember den shops centered around trading. Where will all the nonmember den-shoppers go?

Well, one thing's for certain. My Shops will increase the amount of Jammers who buy memberships– and that's great for AJHQ and the game as a whole.

See you in Jamaa!

~DoomyPanda

AJHQ Needs to Cite Their Sources

Hey Jammers! Sorry I briefly broke my promise of 2-3 posts a week– it's been a difficult week for me.

But here I am! With content for you! :D

If you saw my last post, you will have seen that I edited the text of the online safety quiz to change the answers. It was just a small addition to an otherwise normal post... but in all of the time I've been blogging, this was the first time I've been able to use the Animal Jam text font, DigitalDelivery.

You see, early in the history of AJ Stream, I managed to track down the names of the two main fonts used by AJHQ: TikiIsland for titles, DigitalDelivery for body text. 

I figured out how to download and use TikiIsland, as you can see in my blog's header, but every single font site I went to said that DigitalDelivery cost over 100 dollars to download.

So how did I do the edit? Did I finally cave and spend 100 dollars on a font?

Nope! No way would I pay that much. Instead, I discovered a free download link on the Animal Jam Archives, courtesy of Snowyclaw. It's been there a while, but for some reason I've only found it now. So from this point on, you'll see more edits from me involving DigitalDelivery! Not every day, of course-- those kinds of things take a while ^^;

Speaking of the Animal Jam Archives, I've been thinking: since there are only a handful of AJ blogs with regular updates at this point, it would probably make sense to put them on a sidebar on this blog to make them more accessible, right? I'd still keep the blogroll tab of course-- this would just make things easier.

Ok, actual AJ update time! I looked through every store I could to see what kinds of things are on clearance. I could only go on land, cuz I have no ocean animal at the moment, so you should still check beneath the waves if you're interested.

Jam-Mart Furniture:

Diamond Shop (den):

Aaaaand, that's it for all the land clearance items! I guess there aren't that many right after a new seasonal update.

I also checked the pets/animals part of the Diamond Shop, but it doesn't look like any of those are on clearance either.

Moving on, I got a fan letter from my biggest supporter, AJHQ:

Aww, thanks AJHQ!! I don't know where I'd be without my fanz <33

So I don't really ever talk about AJ boxes because I'm more interested in the game itself than the merchandise, but it looks like a different kind of AJ box, so I clicked on the 'Learn More' and it took me to a page with general info about it, nothing new, but then I scrolled down to find...

AN ANIMAL FACT!!!!!!! WOW, ANIMAL JAM REMEMBERS THAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE AN EDUCATIONAL GAME!!!!

If you can't read it, the fact says "Did you know that the fat-tailed dwarf lemur can increase its body weight by 75g (about 40%) at a time?" 

How do they do that, I wonder? Do they eat 40% of their body weight at one time? Do they pull weight out of thin air?

It has a (Learn More) link right after it, so I clicked it, hoping it maybe went to a web page of one of AJ's educational partners so I could learn more...

...and it just went to the main page of The Daily Explorer. -_-

YOU GOTTA CITE YOUR SOURCES, AJHQ!!!!! 

Because AJHQ has betrayed us, I shall take the liberty of elaborating on the vague fun fact above:

According to the Duke Lemur Center, the fat-tailed dwarf lemur gets their name because of their ability to store fat in their tail to last them through hibernation.

They live in Madagascar, and are the only primate known to hibernate. In fact, they can hibernate for up to seven months! Why? Well, you might know that some bears hibernate to avoid the cold conditions of winter, but winter is very mild in tropical Madagascar. It's theorized that fat-tailed dwarf lemurs are avoiding the drought that often comes with those kinds of winters.

Now, back to the fun fact at hand. Before hibernation, a fat-tailed dwarf lemur needs to eat a lot of their favorite fruits and flowers. This lemur strategically begins their hibernation in the wet season when their favorite foods are the most abundant. 

When they eat before hibernation, they eat 40% of their body weight, which would be like you eating 48 pounds of food at once. The lemur stores the energy from that food in the form of fat in their tail!

A common misconception is that hibernation is like sleeping, when in fact they are very different states. During hibernation, a fat-tailed dwarf lemur's breath, heartbeat, and digestion of food slow down– they may only take one breath every 15 minutes! For non-hibernating animals like humans, this is nearly impossible.

What would it be like to hibernate for months at a time? :0

I'm kind of annoyed at AJHQ for not focusing on the natural world enough, especially when the educational part of AJ was part of what inspired me to start caring about the Earth in the first place.


Before I go, me and julieblap did an impromptu "screenskit" in honor of Online Safety Day:

Ah, safer internet day. Surely one of the most exciting holidays of the year.

See you in Jamaa!