Random Saturday Ep 11: Happy Jamaalidays

Hey everyone, welcome back to another installment of Random Saturdays! Since we are in the final lap of the Jamaaliday season, I thought today's Random Saturday should be about the Jamaalidays. Without further ado, let's go!

For those of you new to Animal Jam or Play Wild, the Jamaalidays is a special season in Jamaa celebrated throughout the month of December. The Jamaalidays parallels Christmas, which is also celebrated in December. During this season, the whole of Jamaa becomes decked out in Christmas decorations. You can find presents, Christmas Lights and Snowmen all around Jamaa! In AJ, there is the seasonal adventure Jamaaliday Rescue, which is a maze adventure like twists and turns.

There also is a month-long gift calendar throughout the month of December. Every day, a new gift can be claimed from the guft calendar. Some of these gifts are really good, like diamonds in AJ or Sapphires in PW. A Jamaaliday Spiked Collar was also given out on one of the days in PW, and that was really cool too!

Throughout the season, Jamaaliday themed den items and clothing will be sold in stores. While Jam Mart Clothing is a common store to visit, why not check out the Shiveer Shoppe? After all, it is the shop in the Hot Cocoa Hut in Mount Shiveer.

Last but not least, why not hang out with your buddies? The Jamaalidays is a season of celebration. Spend some good time with your buddies and have fun!

There are a few days left to the end of the Jamaalidays, so truly, enjoy the great season! Happy Jamaalidays to you all!

-Dew

Agent Insights Ep 02: Trust Trading Scams

Hey everyone, Jade here with the newest episode of Agent Insights! Today, we'll be discussing one of the most common kinds of scams- trust trading. 

Trust trading, also known as trusting, is when you trade another user some of your good items for something bad, then they trade back the good items. For example: animaljammer1 trades a Spiked Collar for animaljammer2's Necklace. Then, animaljammer1 puts the Necklace on their trade list, and animaljammer2 trades back.

This may sound like just a fun game, but it can easily be twisted into more than this. How do you know you can trust the other person? What if they don't trade your item(s) back? The answers to these questions are very unclear. 

Because this method is relatively simple, it is often used for "giveaways" by scammers. Usually, the scammer will tell everyone that the giveaway is "trust" and that the best trade will win. Though they may trade some items back throughout the contest, in the end, they don't trade back at least one Jammer's items, and lock everyone out of their den, effectively scamming those items.

There are, of course, some tricks that scammers may play with this method to make it seem more believable. For example, they might tell everyone that accepting the trust trade is not required. However, they will often follow this up with either saying that unaccepted trades are worth less than accepted trades (which puts users who don't accept at a disadvantage in the giveaway) or that the final trade from the user who wins must be accepted in order to get the items.

Overall, there are much easier ways to do giveaways than trust trading. For example, the user giving away items could give everyone numbers, then use a random number generator, then give the items to whoever had the numbers given by the generator. Trust trading just isn't the way to go, even if the host is trustworthy- The giveaway rules don't even make sense! Why should the person with the rarest items be given more, instead of someone with less rares gaining them??

Moral of the story: Don't trust strangers on the Internet! You don't really know them, even if you think you do. Plus, better safe than sorry.

Random Saturday Ep 10: Evolution of Adventures

Adventures have been part of the game for quite a while now, with the first one coming out in mid-2013. They’ve changed quite a bit over the years. Below, I’ve tracked some of the changes in them over time.

Increasing Scale

Each consecutive adventure has increased in size, scale, and importance to the storyline. We’ve gone from saving small bunny burrows to taking down the Phantom Fortress. I think they might have reached the scale limit, though, with the newer adventures either being smaller or spinning off into different plotlines. We know they’ll never actually get rid of Phantoms in the adventures (unless a new enemy is introduced), because then you couldn’t make more adventures, but they will seemingly get closer. Eventually we’ll probably increase in scale enough to get to the Phantom Factory or the Phantom HQ or the Phantom Intergalactic Space Station (actually that would be cool).

Graphics

The graphics style has changed noticeably throughout the adventures. Mainly it evolved to/rotates between what I’ll call Traditional and Shiny. Adventures started off traditional. Everything looked very natural. There weren’t a whole lot of shiny machinery items, a lot of it was plants and old buildings and tree houses and things of that nature. 

As we moved on into the Phantom Fortress, Badlands and other such adventures/places, things got a lot shinier, mostly due to the style of phantom machinery. Den items from shiny and traditional adventures tend to look out of place next to each other. They’ve reverted back to traditional for Trials of Zios and beyond, though. I think traditional looks better in general, since it mixes with more other items/dens.

Mechanics

A lot of different mechanics and items have been added over the years. You started out with chomper plants, watering and plugs, and then added boomseeds, crystals, different phantom types (kings, engineers, heavy phantoms, etc.), paintseeds, snares, and a whole slew of other things. 

Nerfing

Lots of adventures got nerfed as time went on. The Normal Mode versions got shortened, had obstacles removed, and generally got easier as time went on. The Hard Mode versions stayed the same, resulting in some pretty big difficulty differences.

There we go, Random Saturday Episode 10 is complete. Bye!

Agent Insights Ep 01: Scamming for Pixels?

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first post of a brand new series we at the SASS are starting. This is Agent Insights, where we write about our thoughts on scamming. Without further ado, here is the first post: why do scammers scam for pixels?

First of all, let us look at these pixels. They only exist in AJ (and PW for some) and do not exist in real life. So why do scammers scam for these pixels that do not exist in real life? Let us see.

DISCLAIMER: Everything I'm gonna write here is going to sound like I'm justifying scamming. Don't get me wrong. Scamming is still bad and against the rules no matter what I write. This post is just to see what scammers may think when they scam.

Ok so, we know that these rare stuff that scammers scam for are rare and valuable. I can see why some scammers scam for such items because they really, really want those items. Granted, some of those items actually have a good design. Old items that are not on sale anymore like flower crowns? They actually look good. Newer players never had the chance to buy them when they were available. Sometimes, trades are just a tad unfair. Usually, trades are rare items for rare items, but if you can't even get rare, how would you trade?

Another thing that came to my mind is self-esteem. For some, getting rare is a morale and self-esteem booster. It makes them feel good, almost elite, when they get their hands, or paws, on something valuable. Now, to correct this way of thinking, why not boost self-esteem by doing good for the community instead? Reporting scammers and bullies, hosting true, real giveaways, there are so many ways that happiness can be derived from doing good.

One last thing: bragging. Some people get rare to brag. However, how would you feel if you were listening to another jammer bragging? That isn't nice, is it? So, why would you want to make people feel lousy by bragging yourself? Think about that.

Well, that's all from me now. Until next time. Ciao!
-Dew

Monthly Update - November

Hey all! We apologize for the recent inactivity, but we're back now, hopefully better than ever! Here's your update post for the month of November. 

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The major thing that happened this month was the resignation of Is. We're all sad to see her go, but understand her reasons for leaving and wish her well in whatever she chooses to put work into in the future. If you haven't seen her post about her decision, you can read it here.

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We also modified the posting schedule a bit, it now appears as follows:

Tuesday (every other week, alternating with Sat): Agent's Insights/Scammer Replication/Scammer Thoughts 

Thursday (every week): Scammer posts 

Saturday (every other week, alternating with Tues): The regular Random posts 

Tuesday's posts will be mostly information about different methods of scamming, how to spot scammers and call them out, or analyzing different methods and motivations of past scammers we have caught.

We'll probably change up the schedule again to increase the overall amount of posts when we have a sufficient amount of members to do that (applications are always open on our Joining page!)

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Finally, since we didn't have a recap post for October, here are a couple updates from that month's meeting.

We are considering starting a YouTube channel and a Tumblr page for added publicity. We're not sure about them yet, but we'll update y'all when we know for sure.

We are also considering instituting a new training system similar to the Academy page that the AJSWS used. It will be made up of a series of lessons that you go through one by one, interspersed with actual training with another agent on Animal Jam. Again, we'll update you all when we know for sure. 

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or concerns, leave them in the comments below and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. Happy Jamming!

Society Update: Hey

Hey, all. This is gonna be hard to type. I'm resigning. Now, I think this needs a bit of explanation. I started this blog with he help of Dan and a few other people who have since dropped off the face of the Earth back in early 2017. Since then, we have closed down, re-opened, welcome new members, had others quit, opened a Discord and a bunch of other important things my late-night brain can't remember. I feel as though I am being disingenuous with my portrayal of this person who loves AJ, the community and scam catching. When, in reality, I think the only thing that kept me here was my love of the people and the friendships I've made. Don't get me wrong, SASS has been here when I felt I couldn't turn to anyone and I have learned so much over this almost two-year journey, but I feel my life surrounding this game moving further and further away. Like, when you're close with someone then realize they are receding and bit by soul-wrecking bit, they move away and you have to watch as they do so, helpless in a glass coffin in your mind.

My life outside of the internet has grown immensely since I first began this humble blog. I have the PSAT coming up, people who I view as family by my side, and things I am passionate about taking up all of my time. I am no longer a tween who spends her days on the computer, wishing she had friends. That said, I am very thankful for the friends I have made. Namely, Dan (You're the best, thank you for sticking with me and my crazy ideas), Stan (You're truly one of the best friends I could make), Dew (I'm sorry for leaving but I believe in you!) and Flint (The red reverse). There are so many more I cannot list here, but thank you all!

I know that this is the right choice in the end because my gut is telling me so. Guts are a lot more reliable than hearts, they break less often. I am still going to keep up with the society and do behind-the-scenes work and who knows? Maybe one day I'll come back.

I knew this was coming for a while. I don't play Animal Jam very often anymore. Scam catching becomes a chore if there isn't anyone to do it with. I want all of you, both viewers and agents, to know how much work goes into this and how rewarding it can be. This is a message directly to the viewers: I want you to flood the discord and the application form. I want as many of you on board as possible. As my last act as me, I am going to open applications to anyone. Even if you have already filled one out.

Again, thank you so much for everything this has done for me. I love each and every one of you. My heart is being wrenched out of my body by making this decision but the right one isn't always easy.

-Is

Random Tuesday Ep 09: The Phantom Dimension

Disclaimer: Random Tuesdays have been discontinued and merged with Random Saturdays.

What's up guys, it's me again with another episode of Random Tuesdays. Today, I'm going to talk about the new phantom dimension in AJPW, how to get in, and what you can do in there. Warning: there is a short rant near the end of this post. If you don't want to read the rant, I highly suggest you click that back button when you see the disclaimer message lower down.

Ok, on to the topic. So, recently, a strange portal appeared in the lost temple of zios in AJPW. Apparently, it was "under construction" during the night of the phantoms period. It officially opened just for 5 minutes on 3 Nov, 2100 EST. Once the 5 minutes was up, the portal became locked.

So where did the portal lead you if you managed to get in during the 5-minute period? It lead you to the phantom dimension, where phantoms live. The phantom dimension is basically A twosted version of Jamaa, with everything phantomised and corrupted. Going through the portal, you would appear in the lost temple of zios of the phantom dimension. In the land, there is a single paintseed tree, from which you can harvest paintseeds. Paintseeds there spawn only once a day though.

So what can we do with the paintseeds? Well, the phantom dimension has plenty of phantoms. You can use your paintseeds to battle them. When you are near a phantom, a sword symbol will appear with a timer. When the red ring becomes complete, you will automatically engage the phantom. Otherwise, you can tap the sword symbol to skip the wait. To defeat a phantom, you need to tap specific rings in time. The closer the ring shrinks to the centre, the more phantom coins you earn. You defeat the phantom by successfully tapping all rings.

Wait! What are phantom coins? Phantom coins are currency you spend in the phantom dimension. There is a phantom salesman in the lost temple of zios that sells stuff you can buy with phantom coins.

Now, after the 5 minutes of the portal was up, it became locked. You needed to perform some sort of code to open it up again. For those Jammers who need that code, don't fret. I'll give you a step-by-step guide to open the portal again. First, you need to put on the whole, full, phantom flight suit. If not, the portal will not open. Then, you need to use the 'cry' emote from the emote section. When you do so, a green light will appear. That's a sign that you are doing something right! The next part of the code is to sit. After you sit, another green light will appear. Soon after, the phantom eye at the portal will turn blue and scan you. If you have the full flight suit on, the scan should be successful and the blue phantom eye should turn green. After that , use the ninja emote from the emote section, and you get another green light. Finally, say "Open sesame!" from bubble chat. It can be found under "meetings". If you try saying open sesame from regular chat, that won't work and you have to restart all over again. Once you get 4 green lights and 1 green phantom eye, the portal should open for you.

All right, that's all from me now. Have a jamtastic day!
-Dew

DISCLAIMER: The rant starts from this disclaimer onwards. Click the back button now if you don't want to see it.

Why AHJQ why? Just a few random days ago, I said something along the lines of "AJPW is less dark than AJ". Why AJHQ why? Why must you darken the whole atmosphere of AJPW? Sure, the concept if a new dimension amd everything is great, but why must you make it so dark and spooky? With that change, AJPW is no longer less dark than AJ. Now, it is either as dark, or even darker. AJHQ, please. While it is an interesting concept, I'm sure there are other ways to present it! Ok, I'm done.

Random Saturday Ep 09: Den Maps

Hey all, Jade here, with episode 9 of Random Saturdays! Today's topic will be den maps.

For those who don't know, den maps are a commonly used tactic to show a full den in a single picture, often to show off den decoration. This strategy can't be easily used to create maps of other areas, unfortunately, as the icons on your screen are difficult to cut out.

There are quite a few pictures in this post, so the rest is under the cut! Click read more to continue!