Bell Tree Direct - 9.30.23 - New Staff and October Events

[Jeremy]

Hello and welcome to our latest Bell Tree Direct! This evening's announcements include two new staff members, two new events, and two decisions for you, the community, to help decide. Let's get started!

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New Moderators​

First, we're very excited to announce two new additions to our staff team! Both will be joining as moderators.

~Kilza~ is already known for his unofficial, yet very thorough, event-related organization that will be an asset in an official role as a member of the staff. His experience on the forum will allow him to efficiently help run the community as one of its moderators.

LadyDestani has shown to be a very helpful and friendly member of the forum. Her warm personality will help users feel welcome and comfortable in the TBT community, and we feel her logical and mature approach will lend itself well to the moderator role.

We look forward to working with both of them to help make The Bell Tree even better!

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Autumn Gacha Mini-Event​

Starting tomorrow now, we're hosting a mushroom gacha mini-event, which will take place in this thread. Join us October 1st - October 8th for a chance to win a very rare and newly discovered Glow Shroom! Each Famous Mushroom collectible you buy in the shop has a chance of turning into the new glowing fungus shown below.

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Oblivia will explain more details about this mini-event in the post below. Good luck, and be careful with your bells!

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Halloween 2023 Event​

Halloween is approaching... This year, our Halloween event is taking place during a very special time. It will start on Friday the 13th and end on Halloween.

Grab your popcorn and get ready for a spooky ride, this year's event will have a specific theme. Can you guess what it is? Join us October 13th - October 31st... if you dare!

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Discord TBTer Role: Choose the Color!​

Last Direct we unveiled our forum-Discord integration feature, which assigned the fancy TBTer role to everyone who connects their accounts. At the moment, the role is displayed with a very lovely gold color that I personally hand-picked. However, a few users have been less appreciative of this nice color, referring to it as "pee-yellow."

I think it would be fitting if we allowed the community to decide which color it should be next! If you'd like to help decide the color of the TBTer Discord role, please post a reply in this thread or react to color ideas other users post. This color may not last forever, but we'll use it at least until we decide it's time for a change again.

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New Reactions?​

To kick off our reactions-based announcements, we are changing the "love" reaction from heart eyes to a simple heart.

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Next, we would like to hear feedback from you about the kind of reactions you think we should add. As you know, we currently only have "like" and "love" reactions, so there is certainly room to add more. The staff had some ideas while discussing this, but ultimately decided it would be useful to first hear community feedback. Here are some of the types of reactions we considered:

• Condolences / support / hug
• Surprised / wow / gasp
• Finger pointing up / 100 / agreed / this
• Party popper / sparkles / hands raised / excited for you

What are your favorite reactions from the four listed above? What emojis do you think would best represent them? Please note that we may only add one or two, but will base our decision on your feedback.

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Emojis May Look a Bit Different​

Those of you who were online when our emojis broke in January may remember the temporary set we used called JoyPixels. Some of you seemed to like this set better and it also happens to be the same set of emojis used by our reactions. Let's bring them back and see what you all think!

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Post Quality Rules Simplified​

We're simplifying our post quality rules, specifically, the part that covers the quality of replies. As you can see below, this change not only simplifies the rule but also makes it more lenient. Our goal is to be a little less strict in the way we enforce post quality on the forum. While we still encourage everyone to make higher-quality posts, we also don't want to be too hard on users when they speak more casually from time to time.

Original

Poor quality replies which add little or no meaningful content to the conversation or thread. This includes, but is not limited to the following:

• Low content replies which add little or nothing to the conversation and are unhelpful in answering a question or furthering the discussion.
• Image, link-only, video, or smiley replies, accompanied by no written text or other meaningful content.
• Replies which are off-topic, do not contribute to the subject, or are otherwise irrelevant.
• Simple and short agreement replies, such as "I agree", "This", "Thanks", "Lol", and "Haha". Instead, use the Like button or contribute to the discussion by explaining your opinion in more detail.

New

• Poor-quality replies that add little or nothing to further a thread's discussion.
• Low-content replies such as "lol", "this," or an emoji accompanied by no other text. Instead, use a reaction or contribute to the discussion by explaining your opinion in more detail.

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Free Bells!​

Jack has come early with a special treat! Free bells! Redeem them before they expire next week.


Click here to receive your 75 Bells!

Thank you for spending the time reading our new announcements. Please help us give a warm welcome to our two new moderators and we'll see you during our upcoming events!

 

[Oblivia]

The seasons are turning, the warm summer air has given way to fall's crisp chill, and mushrooms have once again begun their reign over the forest floor. You spot them dancing along rotted logs and glowing among the fallen leaves, small hints of phosphorescence standing out against the deep browns and auburns. This year's forage is special indeed, and for a few of you, the most unlucky week of the year may prove to be anything but...

To celebrate the onset of autumn, our classic Famous Mushroom collectible is making a return to the TBT Shop For 150 TBT Bells. However, a very small handful of these mushrooms may prove to be pleomorphic, and will assume an all-new and extremely rare alternate form after 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, October 8th.

Allow me to introduce the beautiful and seasonally flawless Glow Shroom:

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To prompt the molting process on your newly-obtained Famous Mushrooms, you'll have to rely on a little luck and/or a large bankroll. Every Famous Mushroom purchased has a very slight chance of morphing into its stunning new evolution shortly after 12am EDT on Sunday, October 8th, so this means that the more mushrooms you purchase, the better your chances of getting the glowing goodness in the end. That said, the Glow Shroom will be immediately tradeable, so don't fret too much if luck evades you.

Keep in mind that only the Famous Mushrooms purchased from October 1st through October 8th have a chance at becoming a Glow Shroom. Your older mushrooms are immune!

*The sellback feature may be enabled for unwanted Famous Mushrooms after the mini event concludes, but it will be at a significant cost deficit. Please keep this in mind when making your purchases, and best of luck to everyone!*

 

[Mars Adept]

Thanks for 75 bells.

 

[Zerous]

Ahh the glow shroom is so pretty!!
It just tripped me out to come on to the forums and see the emoji change tho hdbd

Also congratulations @/~Kilza~ and @/LadyDestani, you’ll both make amazing mods!

For discord, I think it would be cool if the colours matched the colour of the grass on the forums, and changed with it between seasons and events!

 

[jadetine]

Captain Kilza, your promotion is worthy of celebration, but we will miss you in the trenches. Next camp will be wild.
And LadyDestani, you are absolutely comfort personified.

I can't believe the Staff had the energy to run an event for Halloween! What a cool shroom, which I like to think was inspired by all the hilarity we witnessed in Mario Party All Stars.

And I have always wanted to laugh or express amusement at someone's witty post. It's different from loving and liking what they had to say. But if you're not taking ideas for the ballot, no worries. The new emoji look may take some getting used to, especially this exponential heart floating away.

And thank you, as always, for the bells. ^_^

 

[LambdaDelta]

tag yourself if you insta went straight to the free bells first

 

[Foreverfox]

Captain Kilza, your promotion is worthy of celebration, but we will miss you in the trenches.

Agree with this entirely! Congrats to you both, @~Kilza~ and @LadyDestani - you will be perfect for this!

 

[Mick]

Welcome @~Kilza~ and @LadyDestani to the team! Just in time for the spooky season too. I think you're both wonderful people and I'm very excited to have you as moderators.

semi related i wish the love react was a heart and not a weird man

RIP to mr heart eyes. You will be missed but only slightly, you somewhat obsessed and/or creepy looking legend.
Personally I think would be a good candidate for a reaction showing support, but I am curious to see the ideas here!

 

[Zane]

RIP to mr heart eyes. You will be missed but only slightly, you somewhat obsessed and/or creepy looking legend.
Personally I think would be a good candidate for a reaction showing support, but I am curious to see the ideas here!

If a lil bear react becomes a thing be prepared to see me put it on everything

 

[Yanrima~]

Congratulations to @~Kilza~ and @LadyDestani on the promotion to staff position in this forum! You both are going to be great staff!

As for the new "love" reaction I would like to see this "love" reaction variant or "amazed" reaction . I'm honestly surprised that the love react changed from the one I'm used to which is the one with the smiley face.

 

[Paperboy012305]

This all sounds pretty exciting, looking forward to the 2 new events coming out.

Also, congrats to @~Kilza~ and @LadyDestani for becoming new staff members.
It basically becomes to nobody's surprise that ~Kilza~ became a staff member, seeing how he was a great coach in the recent Camp TBT events. He may even have some ideas written down for the future ones as well. Take notes!

 

[.: Meri :.]

Oh my gosh, huge congrats to @~Kilza~ and @LadyDestani on joining the moderation team!! I'm definitely going to miss your help in team/cooperative events going forward ahaha, but I think you're both great choices for staff and I know you'll do an excellent job! ^^

I think green would be a good color for the TBTer Discord role! Maybe a nice forest green like #228B22 to suit the Bell Tree name?

I'm really digging the new Love react! As for additional reacts, I'd personally like to see a support/hug react () the most, followed by excitement/congrats () and an agreement react ()! I think I do prefer the older emoji set, but I might just need time to get used to this one.

I'm also super excited for the upcoming Halloween event and can't wait to see what'll be in store for us this year! The new Glow Shroom is also everything?? Aaaaa I'm going to have to exert some serious willpower not to go overboard trying to get one. ;v;

And as always, thank you so much for the bells!! I need them to fund my new Glow Shroom obsession.

 

[LambdaDelta]

ok so going through the other stuff

new staff. two very familiar ones within the community too. best of luck to them

gacha event. since gachas are legally required to disclose pull rates, this means we should also be able to know the rate. so.... what's the rate?

hallowe- GET THAT ****ING THING OUT OF MY SIGHT

new discord color: what about poo poo brown?

glad to see the love react changing. old one just reminds me too much of a certain annoying to gross anime character trope (iykyk). as for the other options, I think a support and finger pointing up would be best of these listed

no idea what the enojis stuff is about, but cool, I guess

rules seem about the same. just worded less tl;dr. at least I think I've got a generally good grasp on where the post quality limits are by now, so ehh. I'll just keep doing as I have been

 

[Snek]

Here we go! Halloween is upon us! My thoughts for each...

1. New Mods!
Congrats @~Kilza~ and @LadyDestani
You both deserve it! I know you'll both do great!

2. Mush Gatcha
Glow Mush...love it but I'm too poor
I'm not that lucky either so I'll probably not spend as much on trying to get one

3. Halloween 2023
.........I feel dead inside already
Sending Jack my prayers for Friday the 13th candies this year

4. New Reacts
Love the new love
I really hope you all add a support reaction!
I really like Micks teddy idea.

5. Free Bells!
Thanks for the bells! Thank you staff for all that you do!

 

[amemome]

congrats new staff!!! very deserving members of this community.

I have no opinions about discord colors as long as they're readable against dark mode! pee potion gold is fine to me

condolences () would i think be a top additional reaction because neither of our two reactions ( and ) really encapsulate the condolences feeling.

congrats ( or ) and/or surprise ( or ) would second best to have but I could see love/thumbs up encapsulating these moods.

finally, agreement ( or )as lowest priority because I think the thumbs up is basically doing the same thing.


thank you so much for the bells and for the new event! I'm excited to participate.

 

[Paperboy012305]

Also about the new reactions, I think the Surprised and Party Popper work best. The rest are honestly already carried by the reactions we have now.

As for the new TBTer role color, I'd be thinking a "Natural Wood" with the hex color being #874326 would look nice. Though if you really wanted to call it "Poop-Brown" go ahead?

Edit: I changed the hue to be a bit more brighter. The context still makes sense.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

Welcome @LadyDestani and @~Kilza~! I hope you enjoy the higher up positions.

I might be tuned in for this year’s Halloween event too.

 

[.: Meri :.]

I think green would be a good color for the TBTer Discord role! Maybe a nice forest green like #228B22 to suit the Bell Tree name?

Ooh thinking about this more, this would probably be too close to the project staff color. It doesn't really fit a forest-y theme, but Purple seems popular on here, so I'll amend my suggestion to a color like #702670!

 

[pottercrossing]

*unintelligible screeching* Congrats, Kilza and LadyDestani! You guys will do amazinggggg!!!

As for the reactions, I think a hug emoji would work for condolences and a party popper for celebration. The other two I don't entirely think are necessary.

Edit: I just looked back through this thread, screw the hug, I want the bear.

 

[Xara]

HALLOWEASTER PART 2 REAL?? i’ve secretly been hoping for another halloweaster event after how much i loved and had fun during the first one, so i am all for this!! the egg hunts are one of my favourite forum events, even if they make me feel like my brain doesn’t exist sometimes LOL; bring on the torture fun!

i already told him in pms haha, but huge, huge congrats to both @~Kilza~ and @LadyDestani on their new moderator roles! i know they’ll both bring amazing assets to the staff team; i‘m excited to watch them grow into their new roles over the coming weeks!

and speaking of new, the new glow shroom collectible is so stunning!! i love the famous and black famous mushrooms so much, and i’m very excited to see a new pretty shroom be added to the lineup!! as much as i love gacha and participating in the collectible gacha events, i think i’ll be sitting this one out as i’m saving my tbt for other things; though i might still nab at least one or two famous mushrooms, just because of how glorious they are!! and if one of them just so happens to turn… i wouldn’t complain hehe.

i’d be most interested in a hug reaction! i already said this in another thread a while back, but i always feel weird liking people’s posts that are about sad or upsetting things, especially in the “what’s bothering you?” thread. i do it to let them know that i’ve read their post and that i care, but it still makes me feel a little weird haha. some sort of hug reaction would really be useful for moments like that— or for moments when my friends on here are so kind that all i want to do is hug them haha

the new emoji and love react appearances will take a bit of getting used to, but i don’t mind them! and as for the discord name colour, while i know this will create a bit more work— why just have one colour? why not 2-3 colour options, so users can choose whichever one they like best? just an idea! i don’t really have any ideas for colours themselves, but i wouldn’t say no to an orange or pink— though pee yellow is just fine, too!

thank you very much for the free bells!! i wasn’t expecting a direct today, so this has honestly made my night i am very excited for october and this year’s halloween event!!