FAQ
Yes, I know this is a brand new blog and so doesn’t have any questions yet, let alone any “frequently asked” ones, but I do post my looks on Facebook and I get a few questions there so I figure I may as well answer them here.
The main one being: oh my God, how do you have so much money!?
Which is fair. Right now, my current in-game currency is $78,482 and 39,278 diamonds. But this wasn’t always the case. When I first started playing the game back in 2013, I stalled on about level 4. I wasn’t winning any prizes, mostly because I couldn’t afford to enter any challenges, and when I did enter them my scores were pretty terrible and so I wound up dropping the game for several years. When I picked it up again in late 2017, I did a bit more research, started adding people on Facebook so I could borrow clothes, found out what the bonus points actually meant and joined a fashion house and oh my God this is turning into one of those recipe blogs where you scroll past the author’s life story for ten million years to try and find the ingredients. So the point of this story was that I was happily entering the rally challenges and winning prizes and levelling up... and then I ran out of money and had to stop rallying. Which meant no prizes. Worst of all, it meant possibly missing out on the grand prize of a free hair accessory.
So I got ruthless with myself. Up to that point, I’d been entering every challenge released except for the flashbacks. Now I had a new rule: only enter challenges for free. So that means no spending money on the daily challenge. There’s no requirements, so the $500 prize for entering is pure profit. The current Style Department challenges only require one item, and there’s always someone on my friends list who has it to borrow, so that’s another $100 free money.
After that, things get a little trickier. The other $100 challenges usually only have two requirements. So all I need is one, then I can borrow the other. It doesn’t matter if it’s out of season, that score can be improved with expensive in-season jewellery, which can be won in the grand prizes in runway rallies. But if I don’t have that one item, I don’t enter unless it can be purchased for less than the entry money. Same with the $200 challenges. It was harder when I first started saving, but now I have a fairly large wardrobe of OOS stuff and there’s usually something there that meets the requirements. So yes, this does mean I wind up skipping a fair few challenges, but it also means when I do need to spend money, it’s available.
Because there are occasions when I need to break that rule.
The most obvious one is, of course, Runway Rallies. As soon as my fashion house starts a new rally, I look at the challenges required and enter any I haven’t already entered. The ones I haven’t entered are, obviously, ones I skipped because I needed to buy things to meet the requirements. Happily I can easily afford to do this.
Next up, Challenge Series. Every month or so, Covet hold a series of themed challenges where the prize is a hair accessory. This is a Big Deal, because the price for a hair accessory credit is £8.99. Real money. That’s obscene. And you can’t buy them with in-game currency. The only time I ever ever buy HA credits is during the once-a-year Black Friday sale when they’re £0.99. Which should be the regular price, but isn’t. So of course, when the chance pops up to get a new hair accessory without having to spend real money on it, I break all my rules and buy whatever’s needed to enter those challenges. There’s one every day for six days and only five are needed to win.
My third reason for spending money is if it’s Saturday night and I somehow haven’t entered enough challenges to win the Styling Spree prize. This prize is expensive clothes. Perfect for boosting your wardrobe value and your unworn bonus points on any daily challenges in a runway rally. I almost always enter enough challenges just playing normally, but every so often, usually if we’ve cleared the board and decided not to rally for the rest of the month, I might be one or two challenges short. If this happens, I’ll enter one of the $100 challenges because yes, I may have to buy a pair of shoes for $145, which is $45 loss, but the Styling Spree prizes this week are a dress that’s worth $2337 and a pair of earrings worth $1550. It’s worth it.
And finally - Covet Collection items. I almost always buy these because they’re fun, themed, fantasy items generally made with specific challenges in mind. They’re cosplay clothes, basically. You need to make a steampunk scientist? Covet Collection has Victorian bodices and top hats with goggles. Mermaid? Here’s a seashell cape. Medieval Princess? There’s a whole outfit for that!
And that’s why I’m rich, bitches.
Next question: do I play on Modern or Classic?
I play on Modern. I know a lot of people aren’t hugely fond of Modern, mostly because it limits what makeup you can use. In fact I had to switch to Classic the other day because a skirt wasn’t loading. I’d had this happen with a jacket once and remembered it worked when I switched to Classic, and sure enough, that fixed it. But when I went to choose some makeup, there were a bunch I’d never seen before. I knew Modern didn’t have every makeup available for every doll, but I didn’t know that there were some that didn’t show up at all. However. Covet has an itty-bitty problem with racism. Which is that in Classic mode, where you can pick the skintone of your doll, it’s very very difficult to get a good score unless your doll is a white blonde. This is bad enough when it’s fantasy made-up challenges. It’s worse when the image and description are clearly asking you to style a model based on a real POC. They have actually had to lock the skintone on occasion, because if people are allowed to style Rosa Parks as a white lady, they will.
But with Modern, it’s more like you’re being given a model to dress up. You can change her hair and makeup, and unlike with Classic, her makeup doesn’t change her facial features, but you can’t change her skin tone or bodyshape. And I love that. For me, it’s worth losing those few other bits of makeup.
What level are you? And how long does it take you to level up?
Right now, I’m level 33. I don’t really keep track of how often I level up, but I find I’ve usually gone up one or two levels whenever they add a new one to the game. Of course, I could level up faster if I spent some of that $78k, but I’m in no rush.
And finally: Can I add you as a friend in the game?
Sure! It’s always nice to have more people to borrow from! Just send me a message and I’ll give you my Facebook url. :D
And... I think that’s all for now. I’ll admit, it’s not very many questions, but if I ever get asked any more, I can always update this post.