The Bell Tree - 10 years ago
- Thread starter Alolan_Apples
- Start date
Before Zetaboards it was using "InvisionFree". Back then it didn't even have its own domain name and used the default InvisionFree "skin" with an eye-watering yellow background.
Virtually all of us back then had come over from Nintendo's now-long-defunct NSider forums, where Jeremy had a long-running thread called the "Animal Crossing Ask Center". He required us to make an account on TBT as a pre-requisite for becoming part of the "ACAC staff". (He also gave us a little AC quiz lol.) Here's the first page of that thread on a random day. Jeremy's handle was "STORMTROOPER88888" and Bulerias' was... the same.
TBT's URL was s3.invisionfree.com/the_bell_tree back then, you can browse some 2005-era snapshots with that link. Unfortunately the archive don't seem to go past the home page from my random clicking around... these crawlers have to limit how deep they go. You can at least see the amusing thread names, though.
My recollection of that era was mostly me getting into meaningless arguments with other people, almost always ones I started for no reason.
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Alolan_Apples
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That’s very interesting. Although I liked learning from you and Trundle about TBT 1.0 and 2.0 before ACNL came out, I’m looking for more experiences from 2013 to 2015, like when I mentioned the collectible craze or when the summer events were more like today’s Christmas and Halloween events rather than a TBT Fair or Camp TBT event.
Speaking of which, I have some more collectible-related facts of TBT from the first three years of ACNL:
- There were no glow wands, arcade collectibles, Christmas collectibles, or potions.
- There were only four or five different type of egg collectbles. The popular ones like the Galaxy Egg or Disco Ball Egg didn’t exist until later.
- The black feather or blended feathers (save for rainbow feather) didn’t exist.
- Apples didn’t get introduced until two years after ACNL came out here in America. The peach was introduced a year earlier.
- Pokéballs were once animated.
i joined the forum much later but i went digging to find these ancient relics of what was 6x2
lineups used to look soooo incredibly long LOL it's almost a little jarring to look back on now, but big sadge to anyone with a full house set/or alternating items that fit with 6x2. i literally got my last popsicle i needed for the alternating half line in the first image, just before the site switched over to 5x2
yeah the full house set got a bit destroyed by the 5x2 (omg i wrote 6x6 in my post I MEANT 6x2 i swear i know how to counti joined the forum much later but i went digging to find these ancient relics of what was 6x2
lineups used to look soooo incredibly long LOL it's almost a little jarring to look back on now, but big sadge to anyone with a full house set/or alternating items that fit with 6x2. i literally got my last popsicle i needed for the alternating half line in the first image, just before the site switched over to 5x2
).your 6x2 lineups look great!!
I don't think I was in the collectible game back in the 6x2 era so i have no relics to show
just memories of Days Yonder™yeah the full house set got a bit destroyed by the 5x2 (omg i wrote 6x6 in my post I MEANT 6x2 i swear i know how to count
your 6x2 lineups look great!!
I don't think I was in the collectible game back in the 6x2 era so i have no relics to show
i panicked for a quick second because i genuinely thought there was a 6x6
was about to say dang what was going on here before 2018...but then realized what you meant! LOL i wish i kept more of the lineups i cobbled up together but i think by the time i understood what collectibles were, i didn't have very many of themnow i wanna see some 6x6 lineups
Bui
Buizel fan and Rambley stan
I actually have a few random screenshots from TBT back in late 2013 and early 2014. They include a screenshot of the shop with a collectible info window open, a shot of the main page, a winter site banner from 2014, a particularly cursed avatar, and some really weird lineup sizes caused by slow-loading internet. But now I kind of want the broken picture icon as a collectible now...
2015 baby here 
The collectible craze felt much more apparent in the old days, I remember anticipating restocks especially during fair or other major events because they wouldn’t sell them “unlimited” unlike now. Also the other cheap collectibles now like the 2015 Halloween collectibles (voodoo, cupcake, candle) used to fly off the shelves during their time, they felt like such a big deal back then. Even the 2015 Christmas collectibles seemed like a pretty big deal, I remember refreshing the shop every 15 mins for a chance at the 2/2 restock of the orange gift that soon opened up to be the lump of coal as we know today.
The collectible craze felt much more apparent in the old days, I remember anticipating restocks especially during fair or other major events because they wouldn’t sell them “unlimited” unlike now. Also the other cheap collectibles now like the 2015 Halloween collectibles (voodoo, cupcake, candle) used to fly off the shelves during their time, they felt like such a big deal back then. Even the 2015 Christmas collectibles seemed like a pretty big deal, I remember refreshing the shop every 15 mins for a chance at the 2/2 restock of the orange gift that soon opened up to be the lump of coal as we know today.
Ohhh this brings back so many memories, I forgot that the profile pictures were aligned to the left. I was peeved by it back then so I bought the 150x100 avatar expansion just so it would look kinda centered LOL.
Yanrima~
"Laughter is the best medicine."
As someone who just signed up in this forum back in 2020 when ACNH is still fresh. I think the screenshots of TBT in early years are actually fascinating to look at.
It's really interesting that it used to have landscape sized profile pictures and more collectible slots than the usual 10 collectible slots we have now. Thank you for sharing a piece of history, I do hope it's properly archived for others who were interested in TBT's history.
Alolan_Apples
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Speaking of profile pics, here’s something I would like to let you know. If any of you have screenshots of my older posts from those days, you probably caught me when I had these avatars:
- Oliver (from Oliver & Company)
- Kaylee (my ACNL mayor) releasing a tarantula in December
- Kaylee praying with her eyes closed
- Kaylee popping a party popper (first 150x100 avatar)
- Jenny (from Oliver & Company) and Oliver
- A bowl of apples
- Penny (from one of my ACNL towns) next to a lantern (first animated avatar)
Yep, this was my entire avatar history from just my first year on this site. I was also Apple2012 (which was my LittleBigPlanet Central username, named after the year I joined LBPC) when I had these avatars. For the longest time, I mostly had Pokémon avatars (especially Eevee), but that was only after I changed my username to Alolan_Apples (named after the Pokémon region, but with apples involved). I didn’t even care about Pokémon when I first joined.
- Oliver (from Oliver & Company)
- Kaylee (my ACNL mayor) releasing a tarantula in December
- Kaylee praying with her eyes closed
- Kaylee popping a party popper (first 150x100 avatar)
- Jenny (from Oliver & Company) and Oliver
- A bowl of apples
- Penny (from one of my ACNL towns) next to a lantern (first animated avatar)
Yep, this was my entire avatar history from just my first year on this site. I was also Apple2012 (which was my LittleBigPlanet Central username, named after the year I joined LBPC) when I had these avatars. For the longest time, I mostly had Pokémon avatars (especially Eevee), but that was only after I changed my username to Alolan_Apples (named after the Pokémon region, but with apples involved). I didn’t even care about Pokémon when I first joined.
Actually for majority of the years it's been 5x2 lineups, but idk TBT had this weird 6x2 phase in I think 2019 or 2020? It was definitely experimental as hell and tbh I do not want to go back to the longer lineups
Yanrima~
"Laughter is the best medicine."
Oh ok, thank you for clarifying!Actually for majority of the years it's been 5x2 lineups, but idk TBT had this weird 6x2 phase in I think 2019 or 2020? It was definitely experimental as hell and tbh I do not want to go back to the longer lineups
Still, it's interesting that TBT is pretty much experimental on UI and a lot of features back then especially with the things like 6x2 collectible line addition and all that stuff.
Honestly looking at it, the 6x2 actually looks jarring and I agree with you. The classic 5x2 looks much better and cleaner in any way.
That Marshal Fangirl
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The reaction I just had to that Inventory page...it looks so clunky and you can't even see the collectibles
Edit: Also on the 6x2 collectible sidebar, I didn't realize how bad it was until we finally got 5x2 back. The ability to have symmetry is unmatched tbh.
