It's #TBT on TBT! The Bell Tree is now officially 20 years old and, after an event-filled 2024 dedicated to this milestone, we have several more presentations and goings-on to share with you through the weekend! Think of this as part mini-event, part TBT Direct, all nostalgia. Thank you, everyone, for making these twenty years possible by making the TBT community your home, welcoming new friends, and sharing so many memories together. We're happy to have each of you here!
Opening Our Community Time Capsule
Five years ago, on the forum's fifteenth birthday, the community created a time capsule and sealed it away for this specific day. The time to open it has finally arrived! In internet years, this is a look back at ancient history: a time before a global pandemic, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and so many changes here on the forum. Our time capsule host, pandapples, has compiled lots of fun tidbits into the main post and it's followed by letters written by the community:
Please share your thoughts in this thread! What were your favorite memories? Did you write a letter to your future self? We'll also have the opportunity to make a brand new time capsule, which we'll post more information about later.
Forum Archive Releasing
Our official Forum Archive is opening now and will be released gradually over the coming days! The first part we're introducing is the start of the Event Archive Directory. The new Forum Archive board can be found inside Bell Tree HQ. As you can see, the list currently documents our last decade of events. As we gradually update the archive, we'll go all the way back to 2004 until we record a full history of TBT's events. Then we'll start moving hidden event boards directly into the public archive for everyone to see. Updates will be posted in this thread regularly!
Limited Time 20-Year Collectible
Introducing our newest collectible in celebration of our twentieth birthday: Cosmic Radioactive Orbiting Spectral #20. This floating #20 pays homage to its older cousin from 2014, the Astral Inner Planet Floating Gold #10. They're both out there floating, orbiting, and sparkling through the galaxy, or perhaps even the vast universe beyond our galaxy, looking down on us and our tiny planet.
From now until November 15th, you will be able to purchase this collectible in the shop for 10 bells. After that, it will never be sold again. This means in the distant year 2030... even as far as 2220... you will be able to display this special collectible to show that you were here on our twentieth birthday!
The Bell Tree History Discord Trivia
We will host a special The Bell Tree History session of Discord Trivia this weekend on Saturday, November 9th at 5PM EST! Much like other trivia games, we ran earlier this year in Farewell to New Leaf and The Bell Tree World Championship 2024, this session will be a series of live multiple-choice questions with higher scores awarded for speed.
Prizes
Top Ten: 100 Bells
All Other Scoring Players: 25 Bells
How To Play
To participate in The Bell Tree History Discord Trivia, join our official TBT Discord Server at the scheduled time and navigate to the #tbt-history-trivia channel! Note that to participate, you must link your Discord account to TBT and sync your accounts, so that we can easily identify you.
Once the session begins about 5 minutes after the posted time, a Discord bot will start to post trivia questions. Each question will have an assortment of multiple-choice buttons underneath that you can click or tap to select your desired answer. After a very short timer, usually between 8 to 12 seconds, the question will close to answers and the correct answer will be revealed. Importantly, your score will be impacted by how quickly you select an answer. Between each question, there will be a pause for everyone to discuss the answer and boast or cry about their results.
If this is all confusing to you, don't worry -- the first question of the session will act as an introduction with an extremely long timer and obvious answer that awards very few points! This will allow you to test out how to play before the real fun begins.
Please remain respectful, appropriate, and do not excessively spam the chat. We will be happy to kick or ban you for the duration of the event if we warn you to stop and you continue.
The bot will post a scoreboard at the end, however final winners are always subject to change if any errors are made or auditing is required. The official winners will be posted in this thread when confirmed.
If this is all confusing to you, don't worry -- the first question of the session will act as an introduction with an extremely long timer and obvious answer that awards very few points! This will allow you to test out how to play before the real fun begins.
Please remain respectful, appropriate, and do not excessively spam the chat. We will be happy to kick or ban you for the duration of the event if we warn you to stop and you continue.
The bot will post a scoreboard at the end, however final winners are always subject to change if any errors are made or auditing is required. The official winners will be posted in this thread when confirmed.
TBT Neighborly Games Relaunch
Attention gamers! Our series of gaming sessions is being relaunched! Reintroducing, TBT Neighborly Games! This new board inside of Gamers' Lounge will host various gaming activities on a regular basis. Play for fun, watch on Twitch, or try your best to earn special prizes! Most games can be played on the Nintendo Switch, with some available on multiple platforms.
Get started in the new introduction thread: TBT Neighborly Games Information.
Return of the TBT 2010s Theme
For a limited time during this birthday week, our throwback theme "TBT 2010s" will be available as an optional skin for the forum. To change to this skin, scroll to the bottom of the site and click the paintbrush icon. Feel free to change back and forth, but this special skin will no longer be available (for now) after November 15th.
This theme, which was originally introduced on April Fools' Day of this year, is based on the forum's skin from the 2010s.
Birthday Bell Bonus
Looking for a boost to your TBT wallet? Introducing the Birthday Bell Bonus running from November 7th to December 31st celebrating our 20th birthday until the year is over!
During this time, you can earn an extra 10 Bells birthday bonus for every day that you create a post in an eligible board. This is an additional bonus on top of whatever amount of Bells you may already receive from posting.
Eligible boards include Animal Crossing discussion boards, Nintendo Treehouse, Gamer's Lounge, The Museum, and bell-eligible Brewster's Cafe threads. The daily bonus resets and can be earned again after 22 hours has passed.
Big Birthday Bounties!
That's not all -- we will also be holding three massive bell birthday bounties (giveaways) throughout this special upcoming weekend! Each day, the bounty will feature a different kind of criteria for earning entries, but each time there will be the same prizes shown below up for grabs. Simply pick up a ticket item from the Shop every day to be eligible for entry in the day's bounty, based on the criteria listed below!
Daily Prizes
1 Winner of 2,000 Bells
2 Winners of 1,000 Bells
4 Winners of 500 Bells
Once you have won any of these prizes during the week, you will no longer be eligible to win another prize.
Friday's Chatterbox Bounty
- 1 entry for every post made outside The Basement from January 1st to November 6th, 2024.
- For example, if you made 300 posts this year, you will have 300 entries into the giveaway!
- All members start with 2,500 entries.
- 1 entry is lost for every 10 Bells ever earned on your account.
- For example, if you've earned 6,000 Bells in total, you will have 1,900 entries into the giveaway!
- These numbers are tentative and may be changed before the drawing.
- 1 entry for every day since you joined the forum to November 6th, 2024.
- For example, if you joined on March 20th, 2020, you will have 1,692 entries into the giveaway!
Animal Crossing Plush Raffle!
What better way to celebrate TBT's big 20 than with an Animal Crossing plush raffle! Three winners will be chosen to receive their choice of an adorable plush shipped directly to their home. To enter, head over to the TBT shop and grab a raffle ticket. The winners will be chosen at random on Sunday, November 10th at 7PM EST.
While this giveaway is open to all TBT members, certain items may have shipping restrictions depending on your country.
Please note that you must be willing to give Oblivia, the raffle host, your full name and mailing address if you're chosen as a winner. If you're under 18, please be sure to ask a parent or guardian's permission prior to sharing your address.
Choice of Reese, K.K Slider, and Isabelle (NH edition).
Canvas Crossing Exhibit
During The Bell Tree Fair 2024, users were tasked with creating art for each other's New Horizons characters. It was a great way to celebrate our fellow community members! During our 20-year presentation, we'll display these drawings on the forum's home page for everyone to see. Three drawings will be displayed at a time, alternating every half hour.
Creating Our New Community Time Capsule
Now open for contributions! Like with our 2019 time capsule, we have the opportunity to record our favorite memories, reflections, and predictions for our future selves and the future community, whoever they may be! After we're done creating the time capsule, it will be sealed away until it's ready to be opened in the future. This time our time capsule will be opened in two different years: 2029 and 2034!
The time capsule is being built in three parts: "Dear Future Me" letters for 2029, "Dear Future TBT" letters for 2034, and a survey of questions about the future for both periods. Get started in its dedicated thread, 2024 Community Time Capsule: Blueprints.
Staff Credits
Special thanks to everyone who helped put this presentation together!
Thread: Jeremy
Discord Trivia and Bell Sections: Justin
Plush Raffle Section: Oblivia
2019 Time Capsule Assembly, Opening, and Organization: pandapples
2024 Time Capsule Assembly: Chris, Jeremy
Forum Archive: Jeremy
TBT Neighborly Games Relaunch: Chris, Pyoopi, Mistreil, TBD
20-Year Collectible: Jeremy (per tradition)
Trivia Host: Justin
Raffle Host: Oblivia, Justin
Running The Forum For 20 Years: All staff members ever!
Keeping the Community Awesome: Every member! Thank you!
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