Random Saturday Ep. 74: Installing the AJPC App

Hey everyone! Clover here with another Random Saturday. This week, we will be going over how to install the AJPC app.

As most of us are aware, Adobe Flash Player shut down in December, so the only way we can play the PC version of Animal Jam is to download the app. Fortunately, it's a simple process.

First of all, you will need a computer that is able to run the app. The app is downloadable on PC and Mac, however, if you're on a Chromebook you're out of luck. Once you go onto the Animal Jam Classic website, click the icon that says "Download for PC & Mac."

Once you click the icon, a file titled "AnimalJamInstaller" will save as an .exe file. Once you open the file, the app will install on its own.

Once the app is done installing, Animal Jam will open on its own, and you can log in normally!

Once you close the app for the first time, it will make a shortcut on your desktop so you can log in easier from then on.

Anyways, that concludes this episode! Have fun playing Animal Jam, and thank you for reading our newest edition of Random Saturdays!

-Clover

Random Saturday Ep 73: New Year's Fortune

 

Hello! Agent Quacc here with another Random Saturday, and for today's post, we will be taking a look at the New Year's Fortune adventure.

Animal Jam announces the adventure in the Jamaa Journal every January in celebration of the Chinese New Year. For this year, Animal Jam also released a bunch of ox themed items that are in stores to celebrate the year of the ox. 

Like most seasonal adventures, you can find New Year's Fortune when you click on the party icon.

The adventure starts with Liza the alpha. She explains that you could find red envelopes that give you prizes or gems that are found all over the map. The envelopes relocate every two minutes so you have to find the envelopes as quick as you can.

To help you find the envelopes on time, a Lucky Dragon accompanies you in the top left corner of your screen. The closer the colour of the dragon is to red, the closer you are to the envelope (which means that the icy dragon means you're far away). 

There are even chests and gem tokens that are scattered all over the map, but they also move around like the red envelopes. There are also an endless amount of envelopes for you to collect too.

That's all for today, thank you for reading!

Update Post - December

Hello everyone! Flint here to bring you the society updates from December 2020.

Firstly, we have decided to remove Agent Insights from the schedule, and only post them when there is something important we specifically want to say, or when something new comes to light that we want to make sure everyone knows about instead of making a new one every week. Agent Insights will still be a thing, they just won't be posted every Tuesday.

Second, you may have noticed that we have recently added a new page to the blog - the Rare Item Guide. Its purpose is to help people tell the difference between actually valuable items and less-valuable items that look very similar to the valuable ones. We hope this can help you all avoid scams involving scammers trying to convince people that un-glitched items are actually glitched, or that cheap yet similar-looking junk is actually rare. Go check it out!

We have also been working on some internal changes to things like the posting schedule. These decisions are not finalized as of yet, but we will let you know when they are.

We'd like to remind everyone that the Scammer Report Form is highly recommended if you have evidence of a scam and want it made into a post. Just remember to follow all the quality guidelines outlined on the Report Scammers page, and your form will likely be made into a post. We appreciate your contributions!

Finally, we are currently hiring! Just head on over to our Joining page for more details. Former agents who want to rejoin, please use the rehiring form instead of the regular application form.

That's all for now. Happy 2021!

Agent Insights Ep. 66: Headless Pet Sharks

Hi! Quacc here with your Agent Insights for today. Today's episode will be about the headless shark scams.

Recently, these headless pet sharks have been deemed as valuable when they are actually common items. Scammers will try to say that they are worth a lot and will put them in their shops for outrageous prices. Realistically, they should be put as 1-3 diamonds as a fair price.

The "headless" part of the pet is actually an accessory that can be added on in the Pet Stop. There is a glitch where you can go to the Play-As-Your-Pet-Party or Pets Only Party as an underwater animal. There are tutorials and ways to do it online as well. That way, you can find secret underwater accessories to use for all of your underwater pets (including the accessory option which gets rid of the shark's head and makes it appear "headless").

The glitch still hasn't been patched so it is still working. It only takes a few tries but it should be accessible. Because of this, any pet with these "secret" accessories shouldn't be worth very much. 

Since the trick isn't very well-known, scammers will try and trade the items for a few den betas when a fair trade for them would typically be a Rare Item Monday. If you see somebody asking for rare items in exchange for headless sharks or if you see them priced highly in somebody's shop, don't fall for it.

That's all for today, stay safe!

Random Saturday Ep 72: Jamaaliday Gift Calendar: AJPC and AJPW

What's up everyone! Today, I bring you your next episode of Random Saturdays! Today's topic is the Jamaaliday Gift Calendar for both AJPC and AJPW. Without further ado, let's go!

The Jamaaliday Gift Calendar is what it is called. It's a gift calendar, literally. From December 1 to 31, all Jammers can receive prizes from the calendar. Prizes could be clothing items, den items, gems, and even premium currency such as diamonds or sapphires. The photos below were taken from the AJPC and AJPW wiki respectively.

The 2020 Jamaaliday Gift Calendar in AJPC

The 2020 Jamaaliday Gift Calendar in AJPW

The method to claiming the prizes is different for the two games. In AJPC, the Jamaaliday Gift Calendar will appear as a popup when you log in. To claim your prize, click the present with the day of December on it. So, if it was the 11th of December, you would click gift number 11. Gifts with a Diamond icon next to it means that the prize is one Diamond. Similarly, gifts with a Masterpiece Token icon means that the prize is one Masterpiece Token. If you miss your login streak and forgot to log in on one day, you will be unable to claim that day's gift. However, you will still be able to continue and claim the next gift when you login.

In AJPW, it is a little different. In previous years, the Jamaaliday Gift Calendar also appeared as a popup. However, this year, AJHQ changed it. Now, you can only claim your gift by going to the Gift Calendar located in Jamaa Township. Clicking the Gift Calendar will bring you to the screen shown in the image above. The door for the date that you logged in will be opened. In each compartment except maybe the 31st, there are three gifts: one for all Jammers, one for members, and a login streak reward. I'm assuming that the compartment for the 31st will only have the gift for all Jammers and members. Please note that my guess is based on the information I currently know and could be wrong. Once a door is opened, it will be opened for the rest of the month. However, you can only claim the gift(s) inside on the day it opened. Similar to AJPC, if you miss a day, the door will be shut for good and you cannot claim whatever gifts are inside. The different thing this year is the introduction of streak rewards. If you keep on logging in, you will be able to claim one/two prizes from the day's compartment. These are the gift for all Jammers and the gift for members if you are a member. Additionally, an extra gift, the streak reward gift, will appear in the previous day's compartment. You will only be able to claim that gift if the compartment door is open.

That's all about the Jamaaliday Gift Calendar I'm posting today. Stay safe, and happy gift collecting!

-Dew

Update Post - November

What's up everyone! Sorry for the late monthly update! Today, I bring you the update for November!

First, I'd like to congratulate Agent Quacc for being promoted to the rank of Sigma. Congratulations!

Next, there recently has been a couple of cases in which someone in our discord server posted spam links in chat. They have since been muted. We highly discourage you from posting such spam links in chat, because you could be permanently muted, kicked or banned.

Next, we have implemented some new society procedures regarding demotion from warnings. It can be viewed in the trials document here.

Finally, we are hiring! If you want to join the team, head over to the joining page and fill out an application form. We will contact you afterwards. For ex-agents who left but want to rejoin, please fill out the rehiring form instead.

That's all the news today. Stay safe and Jam on!

-Dew

Random Saturday Ep 71: Free gifts in AJPC and AJPW

What's up everyone! I'm back with your next episode of Random Saturdays! Today's topic is gonna be about the free stuff that AJ recently gave in the two games. Let's go!

A while back, AJHQ made a news announcement in PW that they were giving out a free bundle in the sapphire shop. It can be redeemed by heading over to the part where you can buy all the sapphire bundles. Click on it, and you will see an option that sell for 0 gems. The bundle contains den items, clothing items and a Pet Wild Turkey. Some of the den items appear to be differently colored items from previous sets. For example, they gave out 6 brown Beastro Dining Chairs. The original Beastro Dining Chair was white.

Other items in the bundle are the Palace Kitchen Brick Oven, Palace Kitchen Prep Table, Palace Kitchen Pantry, Palace Kitchen Dessert Station, Palace Kitchen Dinner Bell, Fresh Baked Bread, Apple Pie, Giant Carrot Cake, Giant Pumpkin Pie, Turkey Statue, Giant Cornucopia and the Feast of Thanks Table. All together, that is 18 den items. If you thought that is a lot, I'll tell you that it is not all.

The bundle also comes with 4 clothing items. Similar to the Beatro Dining Chairs, the clothing items seem to be a differently colored version of already existing items. The clothing items in the bundle are the Fall Leaf Necklace, Maple Leaf Wings, Leaf Skirt and Turkey Hat.

Finally, there is a Pet Wild Turkey in the bundle as well. It can be raised and sent on expeditions just like any other pet.

Moving on to AJPC. AJPC also has a code to give a few free items. The code to redeem these free items is "thankyou". Sadly, the number of items given in AJPC is considerably less than AJPW.  I counted, and there are only 6 items in total. They are the Turkey Hat, Turkey Tail Feathers, Cornucopia Hat, Maple Leaf Wings, Acorn Hat and a Pet Turkey.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much longer this code will be made claimable. So, I recommend you to go get the free items on both platforms if you haven't already. Some free stuff is still better than no free stuff after all!

That's all from me today. Till next post!

-Dew

Agent Insights Ep 65: Two-factor Authentication

What's up everyone! Today, I bring to you the next issue of Agent Insights! Since there was a recent data breach as explained in a previous announcement, I thought it'd be fitting to talk about account security.

Having a strong password isn't the only way you can secure your accounts. Though, having a strong password is still very, very important. You can read more about strong passwords in our previous agent insights here. The method that I'm going to talk about in this agent insights can be used on top of a strong password to add another layer of security on top of it. This method is known as two-factor authentication, or 2fa for short.

2fa can be enabled on many online platforms like Google, and even Discord. Unfortunately, Animal Jam doesn't have the feature (yet, as of writing this post). So, if you have other online accounts aside from AJ, I strongly recommend you to go check if there is an option for 2fa, and enable it if there is.

So, what is 2fa? It essentially is an additional step that people have to do before they can enter their accounts. To set it up, you'd need an authenticator app. One example of such an app is Google Authenticator. What it does is that it generates a six-digit code that refreshes itself periodically. One set of six digits corresponds to one account.

During the setup phase, you must link your account to the authenticator app. Most apps should have the function to use a generated code to link accounts. After logging onto your account and clicking 2fa, there should be instructions to follow. Just follow the steps, and you would be able to enable 2fa for your account.

After 2fa is set up for your account, you need to refer to the app to logon to your account. After keying in your username and password, you would be redirected to another screen. You'd have to key in the six-digit code from your authenticator app that corresponds to your account before it refreshes itself. You can only access your account after you key in a code that exactly matches that in the authenticator app at that point in time.

Since the breach, AJ CEO Clarke Stacey stated that they will be improving their security over time. The whole video may be watched here, with the announcement of new security measures around the 6 minute mark.  I sure hope that 2fa is among these new measures that AJHQ will be using!

With that, I've come to the end of this post. Once again, I'd like to emphazise the importance of 2fa. I also encourage all of you to check through your other online accounts to see if they do allow it, and enable it if they do.

That's all from me today. Stay safe and jam on!

-Dew