Breaking up the 5th Era - History of TBT

Alolan_Apples

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About a year ago, I came up with the TBT Eras. They were the Pioneer Era, the Wild World Era, the City Folk Era, the Early vBulletin Era, and the First Modern Era. Because of how short the first four eras were and how long the last one was, I plan on breaking up that last era, as we have seven eras.

The new era list for TBT is:

  • Pioneer Era - 12/19/04 to 12/4/05
  • Wild World Era - 12/5/05 to 11/15/08
  • City Folk Era - 11/16/08 to 1/12/11
  • Early vBulletin Era - 1/13/11 to 6/8/13
  • First Modern Era - 6/9/13 to 6/8/16
  • Repeated Event Era - 6/9/16 to 10/20/18
  • New Horizons Hype Era - 10/21/18 to 3/19/20
On an earlier blog entry, I discussed what each TBT Era was about and they were about. On this scale, I divided the history into eras based on Animal Crossing’s video game releases (and in a special case, the transfer from zetaboards to vBulletin). But due to how long the last era was how it changed a lot over the times, I chose to break it up into three.

First Modern Era:

Back when ACNL first came out, the community of Bell Tree Forums has expanded, being more active than before. Even ACNL made this site more famous. This was the most active TBT has gotten. However, this was also TBT at its roughest, as there was a lot of fighting, trolling, and other forms of immaturity. Also, the collectible craze was so crazy that it resulted in high prices for collectibles and higher IGB to TBT exchange rates. And you have to be fast enough to catch a restock.

Some highlights of the First Modern Era was the change in board organization, the introduction to all five fruit collectibles, the four times staff applications opened, the Halloween craze in 2014, and all of the following events:

  • Clash of the New Leaves
  • 2013 Halloween Story
  • 2013 TBT Fair
  • 2nd Annual Egg Hunt
  • TBT Beach Party
  • 2014 TBT Fair
  • Friday the 13th Woods Event
  • 3rd Annual Egg Hunt
  • TBT Fire Festival
  • TBT Spooktacular 2015
  • Jingle’s Jolly Jamboree
  • 4th Annual Egg Hunt
Another thing to point out was how easy it was to make TBT Bells early on, but due to abuse of systems to make Bells, the staff had to nerf ways of making TBT either by wedging down on how much TBT you get or removing the system altogether. The most famous one was the Welcome Bells. They kept it for a long time, but they finally have to drop the system due to constant alternative accounts created. Another famous one was the interest system. It was down for a long time because of not just abuse, but how it only benefits the richer members while absolutely doing nothing for the others. All of these setbacks (minus the fines for exploiting the username change glitch) occurred during the fifth era.

Repeated Event Era:

After the June 2016 Direct, the site has improved a lot on organization and management. The site has a Discord server, a Contact the Staff board, seashell welcome currency, and a staff team with members that would make the best site staff.

The main idea of the 6th Era was that the staff listing stayed the same. Ever since staff applications closed in 2016, it has not re-opened. It’s been like that for quite a while now. When Jake, Tom, Laudine, and Peter joined the site staff (and when Oblivia was promoted to administrator), this new era began. The ten staff members that were managing this forum have been the same ones for over two years. When three of these members retired, this era has ended.

The reason why I called it the Repeat Event Era was because of how some of the events were the same in both 2016 and 2017. The Egg Hunt, had a different set of egg collectibles and a different set of clues, but they were parallels to each other. The 2016 and 2017 TBT Fairs, despite different themes, differences in contests and events, and the Arcade event, were essentially the same both years as they had their parallels (especially when the same staff were running it). The Woods Expedition, they were almost the same both years. The Advent Calendar event, even though there were more in 2017, both had the Advent Calendar and the 12 Days of Christmas raffle. 2018 was a different year that broke the repeated event trend, but it was still part of the era since we had the same staff.

Another major point of the 6th era was that TBT was getting very inactive. Due to how old ACNL was, members have been leaving this forum. This resulted in fewer TBT in circulation, collectibles getting rarer, less participation in events, and quieter boards. While it has improved after how rough 2014 and 2015 were, it’s depressing to see how small the community has gotten.

New Horizons Hype Era:

After the staff listing has changed for the first time in two years, the site has entered a new era. About a month before the era began, there was a Nintendo Direct that announced that Animal Crossing is coming to the Switch. Because of the teaser, people were excited that a new Animal Crossing game is finally on its way. This resulted in a new board created, and increase in speculation for the new game.

At this point, New Leaf is so old it’s no longer special. But a new game is coming out. There were also more Bell Tree Weeks, improvements to the Christmas and Easter events, and a few changes like the birthstone restrictions removed.

Like the last era, the community was shrinking, but by now, the effects were already noticed for quite a while. It is scheduled to end on the day before ACNH comes out.
 
Hey, just wanted to say I read this word for word and really like the way you divided the site’s history into seven eras! This is really well thought-out and well done. :)

On a side note, do you know yet what you’re going to name the eighth era of TBT?
 
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