Hello everyone, today we have a short Bell Tree Direct to update you with a few announcements on the site. We will be kicking off with a special version of our Villager Week event, making another change to our username change item, and announcing several adjustments to our staff team. I will also talk more about the current status of TBT and what we plan for the future, so be sure to read to the end if you're interested.
Villager Week: Halloween Edition
As a part of our Bell Tree Week mini-event series, we are excited to announce Villager Week: Halloween edition. This edition of Villager Week features some of the more spooky, scary, and costume-wearing villagers from the game.
Along with the other perks, which you can read more about in the official October 2018 Villager Week post, we are bringing back the villager popularity tournament and will once again create a collectible for the winner! This time, we will have the following 16 Halloween related villagers compete in the bracket:
Stitches, Lucky, Clay, Kiki, Pietro, Katt, Barold, Roscoe, Rodeo, Cobb, Gruff, Labelle, Tammi, Biskit, Marcel, and Ankha
Can you guess how each villager relates to Halloween? Read what we thought in the October 2018 Villager Week post linked above. Click here to check out the bracket! Click here to vote!
Staff Changes
Aside from some position changes, our current staff team has been made up of the same people over the last two years. This team has hosted some of the site's best events and has moderated the community effectively. This will be the legacy of all of its members, even as some are stepping down today.
Peter has been a member of our community since 2015. He became project staff in 2016 and a moderator in 2017. He has been a great help with many events, including graphic design, coming up with ideas, and hosting events in The Bell Tree Fair 2016, The Woods Expedition 2016, TBT's Fifth Annual Easter Egg Hunt (2017), and The Bell Tree Fair 2017.
Jake has been an active member since he joined in 2008 and continued this during his time as a staff member since 2016 by moderating thoroughly and efficiently. He helped host events in The Bell Tree Fair 2016, The Woods Expedition 2016, and The Bell Tree Fair 2017. He wrote clues for TBT's Fifth Annual Easter Egg Hunt (2017) and TBT's Sixth Annual Easter Egg Hunt (2018).
Tom is a veteran of the site. He joined in 2006 and became a moderator ten years later in 2016. As a mod, Tom helped run the site and contributed to changes in our rules. During his time on the staff he has helped with many events, including The Bell Tree Fair 2016, The Woods Expedition 2016, TBT's Fifth Annual Easter Egg Hunt (2017), The Bell Tree Fair 2017, The Woods Expedition 2017, TBT's Sixth Annual Easter Egg Hunt (2018).
Murray will be staying on the staff team, but will be changing his position from moderator to project staff.
Tina will go back to the moderating team from her current project staff position.
I want to personally thank all of our staff members and I know that the community will appreciate all of the hard work each of you have put into running The Bell Tree over the last two years. We couldn't do it without you.
Instant Name Change Item
Our current username change item requires an administrator to manually change the user's name once the item has been purchased. This was implemented after an exploit was discovered in our automatic version, which allowed users to change their name more than once from the same item. However, the current manual alternative is a much slower process.
We are adding a new item that will address both of these problems. The new "Instant One-Day Username Change" item will work automatically like before, but it will expire after one day. Because of this, we suggest you only buy one right when you want to make the change so you don't waste your bells or seashells. If you forget to configure the name change from the new instant version, you can have it replaced by using a collectible correction form in the Contact the Staff Board. But remember that collectible corrections come with a fee of 50 bells.
For the time being, both the manual name change and the new instant one-day name change items are available in the shop. We will be phasing out the manual item as users get used to the new one. Also don't forget that we announced in the previous Bell Tree Direct that all users will receive 10 seashells after they've been registered for 2 years, which allows them to change their usernames for free.
100,000 Members Bell Giveaway
The forum has hit another milestone: 100,000 members! To celebrate, we are giving away 100 bells to the first 100 members. Thank you for being one of the one hundred thousand at The Bell Tree!
What's Next For TBT
As I'm sure all of you have heard by now, Nintendo has announced a new Animal Crossing game that will be released on the Switch next year. After six years since the release of the last game, this is the longest time we've been waiting for a new one, yet the forum has continued to be moderately active in what is normally our slow period. If past game releases are any indication, The Bell Tree will experience a significant increase in activity with the new game and it will possibly be bigger than we are currently able to handle.
Over the next several months we will announce a few changes that will help us get ready for the next game before it's released. This may impact the amount of events that we are able to host until then. Not only will we be focused on preparing the site, but we also don't want our staff to be overworked before the forum's activity increases (myself included). On that topic, I'm sure we will be looking for new staff early next year, especially because part of our current team is stepping down.
You may have already noticed that we have not had as many events lately, but we hope to have at least one by the end of the year. I know the events are some users' favorite part of TBT, so I hope you understand while we prepare in this calm before the storm. Running a site like this can be a lot of work, but it has turned into a kind of "internet home" for many people, so we want to put our best effort into helping it thrive. Thank you!
