Cinder

 Hey Jammers,

I know I said I was abandoning the blog, and I see no future in which I’ll be returning to regular updates, but I thought I’d say some quick words about the whole situation regarding Fer.al, Cinder, and Wildworks as a company. I still have no way to access my main AJ account, and as I said in my last post I’ve pretty much given up trying, but here we go.

To preface: My feelings regarding NFTs can’t be properly expressed if I want to keep this blog PG.

With that out of the way, I’m assuming the few (if any) people reading this already know the main details of the situation, so I’ll spare you guys from another explanation. I was there for pretty much the whole thing: I was online when the announcement was sent out in the official Fer.al discord, I was there waiting for the 30 minute slowmode to end so I could send another message, I was there when there was zero communication for months, I was there at roughly 3:17 pm (EST) yesterday when the game finally closed for good.

It’s hard to believe I used to look up to Wildworks and Clark Stacey. I’ve been playing Animal Jam for more than half my life, and I’ve spent more money that I’d like to admit on memberships and the like. Frankly, I’m appalled by just about everything Wildworks has done lately. They made a terrible decision and handled the fallout extremely poorly—that is to say, they didn’t bother to handle it at all. My appreciation for the natural world and my passion for animals was cultivated in large part by Animal Jam, and to have the company behind it participating in a fad that actively participates in harming our world is devastating. I regret spending as much money as I did on a company that not only supports but actively participates in NFTs, not to mention the abysmal communication. 

I spent Fer.al’s final minutes in an acquaintance’s sanctuary with a few others, lined up next to her on the spawn pad for screenshots because the game didn’t allow her to move her character. We spoke in Discord only because in-game chat was gone. There was no goodbye message, no send-off, not even a tailored closing message—all we got was the update notification and then if that was ignored, a message telling us we lost connection to the server. And then it was over.

I don’t really have an overarching point to all this. Frankly, I only just remembered I had this blog in the first place and thought I ought to write something out. But here it is. Maybe someday I’ll throw something else out there, but I don’t see that happening at this point in time.

Once again, thank you for reading and feel free to ask for my Discord or Tumblr if you want to talk.

- Amhdolphin

Last post (probably)

 Hey all!

Bit of a heavier post today, I suppose. Essentially, the chances of me getting back into my account are roughly zero - and I’ve lost interest in the game at this point anyway. It still holds incredible nostalgic value for me and I may still pop in on my alt (subtracti if you want to send me a buddy request - I may not see it for awhile though) from time to time, but my first account - which I’ve had since 2013 - is… likely not retrievable. I also still play fer.al occasionally - I lost interest in it for a time, but I think I’m slowly getting back into it (amhdolphin on there).

Anyway, this blog will likely not be continuing. It’s possible, albeit unlikely, that I may post again at some point in the future, but if that happens it’s probably not going to be anything significant. This is due to several reasons - school ramping up again, mental health, lack of interest in the game, growing interest in other things - but I’m glad to have been part of this amazing community for a time. I do still read a couple blogs - speaking of, Dogo created the Animal Jam Oceanz blog, which is definitely worth checking out! - even if I no longer play the game frequently. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even comment occasionally! :-) I still use the email attached to this blog, so if you comment here I’ll probably still see it - I will be leaving the blog itself up. If you want to contact me for whatever reason, I have a discord and a tumblr, both of which I check frequently - if anyone wants either of those, feel free to ask! Just a heads up on those, though - I rarely, if ever, post about AJ or fer.al on either platform (though I am on a couple fer.al discord servers, including the official one), and if you're curious I recently updated my blogger profile with more recent interests and the like :-)

I hope everyone is doing well, and for what is probably the last time, I’m signing off this post.

Thank you for reading!

Amhdolphin

Update

 Hey all. It's been awhile since I last posted, I'm sorry. Happy new year, I suppose, although 2021 isn't looking all too great so far if you live in the US. I'm gonna get straight to the point here - I'm locked out of my Animal Jam account. I can still get into the parent account, but the password to my actual game account was changed (I believe by AJHQ, since there have been no abnormal logins), and when I try to change it again, it gives me an error message. I sent them a ticket from my email account (different from the one connected to the game account), and they wouldn't answer my claim unless my email matched the one on the account. However, I no longer have the one on the account; it was originally my mom's and she has since moved on to a different email address. Long story short, it's incredibly doubtful that I'll be able to access my Animal Jam account again. Now, I do have an alt account which I transferred the few items I had left after I got hacked but never transferred them back, but honestly, I'm not really sure I have a reason to come back. The new account has none of my old friends connected to it, nor does it have all that many items, plus I lost my membership, dens, animals, etc. In short, I lost more than I did when I was originally hacked. I'm super disappointed in AJ's help service, and I was slowly growing past the game regardless. Unfortunately, I highly doubt I'm gonna continue this blog. I will still read others' blogs, but this one will likely not live all that much longer. There's a chance I might start writing entirely about Fer.al, but I doubt it. I may still check in every so often, however. I hope I can get my account back, but I'm not all that optimistic.

Thanks to those who bothered reading, and I hope everyone has a good 2021.

Amhdolphin

Future of the blog

 Hey Jammers!

I've been thinking more, and I believe I will continue the blog (although posting rather infrequently). However, I may not keep it solely Animal Jam-related: I'm considering branching out and writing a little more about Fer.al (and more specifically, its lore, which I'm really enjoying). Of course, the main focus of the blog will remain Animal Jam, and the majority of posts will be about AJ. Thanks everyone for the support, it really means a lot to me. I would write a full post now, but I have homework to do!

Amhdolphin 

Goodbye (kind of)

 Hey Jammers,

I'll get straight to the point today: I got hacked two weeks ago. They left me with 50 den items and 30 clothing (but left all my den betas???), and I can only assume it was recycled because I have about 900,000 more gems than I did previously.  I went back through my login history and determined the date of the hack, but there's no way for me to know who did it. Or to get my stuff back. I wasn't particularly rare by any means, but I lost a lot of collections I had worked for a long time on, such as my very first clothing items in the game, all of my Journey Book items, all of my art except for one, all of the birthday cakes and birthstones, and all of my nature/plant items. Just about everything, most of which I won't be able to get back ever.  Naturally, the game I don't care at all about, Play Wild, was left untouched.

I'm not quitting, because the game means a lot to me. But I doubt I'll play very often, and I probably will not continue this blog. I might post occasionally, but I just... don't really have the motivation to keep blogging. Thank you to the few readers I have for sticking with me. 

I don't understand why people hack. Like, enjoy your pixels, I guess, knowing you likely just made someone very upset. At least it was me and not some poor eight-year old who would've been inconsolable. I am very upset by this, but not nearly as much as I would have been, say, two years ago.  

Again, I am not quitting. But I'm not really sure if I can ever truly get back into the game - most of my old game friends have moved on and no longer play, and the one I'm still in touch with had their account deleted, so we talk on other platforms. And with less and less content, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be playing. Animal Jam has always been a big part of my life, and I'll always love it and remember it fondly, but it's not as important to me as it used to be. I've been playing for seven years now. It may be time to move on. Not yet, of course, but soon, maybe. Perhaps I'll keep posting, but likely not. I might write a formal goodbye post later, but why not leave it open-ended?

Thank you.             

Amhdolphin              

Sorry for the long break + new blog

 Hey Jammers!

Eep! Sorry for the long break! I’ll try and post more often now that school’s started again. I don’t have any fresh content today, but I do have some news: a new AJ blog has popped up! I learned of the Animal Jam Infox through the Animal Jam Stream, and it seems awesome. Head on over and take a look here: https://animaljaminfox.blogspot.com/?m=1

Thanks for reading!

Amhdolphin 

Adventures!

Hey Jammers,

I was trying to think up a post today and I thought, you know what, why don't I do an adventure. So I did. I completed Return of the Phantoms this morning and I decided to take some screenshots to share along the way. So here we go!

Okay, so here's one of my main adventure characters (I also have a seal that's a higher level but it was further down in the character menu and I didn't feel like finding it). Let's call her Rosy from here on out. Here she is by the portal. I decided to start from the base camp because I feel like no one goes there anymore. The music is nice.

 

And so we come to the lovely Bunny Burrow, where citizens aren't capable of walking ten feet.

So they left you alone in the danger? Ditch those friends, Binky!

I decided to take a selfie with Harvey.

Ooh, mysterious.

Ok, time to fill the pipes up.

*cue Tangled intro* this... is the story of how I died...

Okay, so now I need to water all the plants and make them happy and green again.

The plants looked like this before...

... and now they look like this.

So now I have to go back to BUNNY BURROW to get a PHANTOM KEY, as AJ likes to emphasize.

LOOKS LIKE SOMEBODY'S HOME NOW

Thank you George.

Okay, got the key, headed back to the door which I'm now realizing I should've taken a picture of.

Good to know.

ooh

It took me inside a cave which I forgot to screenshot, but anyway, here's the prize.

Ok, now I'm freeing all the bunnies.

Caged bunny selfie!

I love how the act of unlocking the cage with a key causes it to completely destroy itself.

Okay, well, that's pretty much it. I forgot to screenshot the prize, but I won 500 gems. That was fun, I think I'll do that in the future. I feel like nobody does the older, easier adventures anymore, it's been ages since I've done this one. I think I'll do Meet Cosmo next, that's my favorite of the older ones. I like collecting the vegetables and ingredients.

That was fun. Here's today's customary animal: some baby ostrich chicks!

Seeya!

Amhdolphin