PLEASE HELP: Seeking long time animal jam players for college essay interview...

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Title:	PLEASE HELP: Seeking long time animal jam players for college essay interview...
Creator:	counterclockwiz
Date(s):
Medium:	Reddit post on r/AnimalJam
Fandom:	Animal Jam
Topic:	roleplay, player-run economy
External Links:	https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimalJam/comments/11z0iqt/please_help_seeking_long_time_animal_jam_players/
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PLEASE HELP: Seeking long time animal jam players for college essay interview... is a post made to r/AnimalJam in 2023 which asked interview questions for an essay about the culture of play children's MMORPGs.

Questions

1. How did player roleplay take place? For instance in club penguin there was a large emphasis on baby/mom roleplay, that centered around the puffle adoption room. In Animal Jam what roleplay was popular? What areas would you go to find it?

2. Can you recount any different typing styles that would differentiate some players from others. There was slang in Fantage that was used for easy shorthand to tell who was a "noob" or not.

3. What items would you consider the most rare? Longtime rare? Any significant rare item history that is of note?

4. How was the culture of trading? Where would you go to trade? Anything else of note?

Responses

Location

Roleplaying has been a thing pretty much since aj came out. The most popular places were the hospital, pillow room, and the sarepia forest. Most of the roleplays consisted of family rolepays, wild cats roleplays, school roleplays, basically anything a child would be interested in/play with other kids irl.

Xdevok

I remember seeing roleplay anywhere, but I think a really interesting one to note is the massive Warrior Cats roleplay scene- Done with wolves of all things. The Wolf Party was a veeery popular place for these to occur, and if it wasn't there I think it was in dens or the forest.

floydoodles

Sometimes battles between groups were so huge, they’d take place in Sarepia, Shiveer and Zios— all at the same time.

Proof-Cantaloupe5365

Language

During my years of playing fantage, the most popular slang words were like "gtg","lol", "rotfl", and any other basic slang we use today. I remember playing fantage and learning that lol meant laugh out loud. There was also slang that people used for roleplays in fanatage too like hsd (highschool drama) and other words that i can't remember because I havent played in years. Pretty much anyone that didn't use those words were new players. You could also tell who was and wasnt new based off of the things they were wearing or their house. The same goes for animal jam as there were certain abbreviations like "hd" for headdress, "founders" for founders hat, "solid" for black spikes, etc.

Xdevok

Rares

When I played, I know a big thing was the Beta Skullies- I think they returned with a revamp some time ago? Though those look to still be rare. I know the other big things were Gloves of any kind, mainly the non-member ones, spikes, top hats, worn blankets, viking helmets, bow and arrows, swords ETC.. Most of these seem to still be sought after, at least. Beta Skullies will forever be iconic to me, I don't think I've ever seen one if they did actually remain, but they had such a mystique to them.

floydoodles

To answer all three questions, I would say the rare headdress. (not the rim although it is still rare and wanted) The reason why I say that is because there's only a certain amount since animal jam stopped creating them. They stopped making them because it was seen as offensive and cultural appropriation.

Xdevok

Trading

I feel like I'd see trading most in jamaa township? Pillow room maaaybee as well. Personally I would just stick in the township, but I don't remember that aspect super well. It's interesting, I don't recall being super into trading but seeing some of the stuff I have that went off the market before I ever joined at least shows that I participated a decent bit... I might would note it wasn't as 'serious'? Some things were high value for sure but it was just a handful of things, people were careful were those and I'd say trading was just way easier to understand rarity wise back then. But then again, the game is over 10 years old now, comparing that to when it was just a year or two old, of course its more complex now. Seeing stuff that's called beta now intrigues me, because I'm so used to that being associate with 'item that was only possible to obtain in beta and has never re-released' rather than 'yeah this item also released during beta but stayed around for a while after that', but this is considering so many common/long-running items when I played are apparently considered beta now.

floydoodles

Most trading was in Jamaa township since those places were usually packed, and alot of people i knew referred to the animal jam item worth wiki for values. (not sure if it's a good source anymore). I do remember that there were always rampant scammers and people begging for free items though.

EmptySodaCan1

The main places I remember trading were jamaa township, apondale, any famous jammers den, and the pillow room. Trading was easier back then because animal jam didnt rerelease items at the time. The economy wasnt all wacky like it is today. There used to be updates all the time and the community was overall positive back in the day. People were a bit more understanding and didnt care about rares as much as they do today.

Xdevok

Extra

I don’t like to label myself but I was one of the founders in the aj rp community, alongside many others: bearwolfalmighty, xtornoxloveo, nightmarric/oreofur, cinderellaman, shizophrenic, xlionofthesouthx/sighingoflion, laet/scourge, braveclaw111, kabbege, soulrender, iniquity, amazonianhunter, xxslystarxx, catfue12316, risingxx, madjester, ghostofthepanther, unhallowed, nomadiic, mooq, cacao, cissyfissy/iamnotlura, communicating, darkcrystalcave, sparkyy, and so, so, so many other brilliant people.

There were constant battles between clans and packs. Role play styles differentiated from “traditional” (simple no vocab writing) to “advanced” (writing with a lot of vocabulary) and there was also “fluent” a mix of both styles. There were all-server owning groups; one of the most notorious being Dauntless led by Oreofur. Such groups dominated the role play community. There were a lot of groups that had 100+ members. Some even had more than 300. [...]

Notorious groups: Hounds of Chains/HOC - Led by Amazonianhunter Nightmareclan- Nightmaric Dauntless — Oreofur & Shizophrenic Lazarus — Oreofur & Amazonianhunter Contagion — Bearwolfalmighty & Catfue12316 Thunderclan — madjester Crescentclan - xxslystarxx Tropicalclan — (this clan reigned for a LONG TIME under so many different leaders) Valiance — Bearwolfalmighty & Stormpaw132 Vigilance — Neonrift Hounds of Odious — warriorcatsivyleaf The Hollows - Oreofur/Whitememory/Nightmaric The Devils Hounds (took over the hollows and renamed) - xTORNoxLOVEo Northern Stride — xTORNoxLOVEo Witheredclan — XxLionFromTheSouthX Savageclan — XxLionFromTheSouthX

These were all pretty legendary groups. the rp community slowly died out around 2018-2019 sadly. During covid, AJ did give out free membership and a lot of people including myself came back for a minute— but alas everyone has pretty much moved on w their lives. It’s crazy tho, AJRP in that community was taken so seriously. It was like plotting real war sometimes. There’s somewhat talk of a revival happening right now. Some notorious people have returned. But the aj rp community has shrunk quite a bit since five years ago.

Proof-Cantaloupe5365