Haven’t played or paid attention to sky in a while. What happened? <:(
oh ive got a list. forgoing my typing quirk for this bcos its a long one. it contains nearly everything tgc does regarding the game, not counting anything thats just an awful choice on the npcs, because thats a whole other can of worms.
1; tgc, starting sometime last year, began patching out "oobs," or out of bounds locations. these locations were harmless and often used by players to get pretty screenshots, have a quiet place to play music, or hang out with friends and show new players. instead, most oobs for the elders - where you can glitch out to hang around where the elder cutscenes are held - were removed and replaced with A FUCKING PAID TELEPORT FEATURE. IF YOU SPEND 30+ USD ON A SINGLE PIN OF THEM, YOU CAN USE THE STAR FEATURE TO TELEPORT THERE. the only one they have yet to fully remove is the valley elder oob, but they still sold a pin for that so they probs plan on it
2; again starting sometime last year, they implemented an "afk" feature. this basically putz your skykid to sleep after you have been away for a certain amount of time. the time fluctuated a bit in development and release, spanning from 2 minutes to 10. i think nowadays its around 2 minutes for your kid to fall asleep, and 5 minutes for the timer to kick in.
the afk timer is a near universally hated feature, as after a set amount of time, you can NO LONGER COLLECT WAX . AT ALL. unless you move between world barriers you cant collect anything.
this was a major slap in the face for anyone who was even REMOTELY busy. candle runs - the act of going through the entire game to collect wax for the in game currency - used to take 2-3 hours depending on how well you knew the map, resulting in around 20 candles. with the implementation of the chevron system, it turned into an average of 15 candles every run. along with this, the runs got LONGER. it took me personally nearly 5 hours to complete one, and i had been doing crs and ubering - the act of carrying someone around, usually for crs - for years.
usually people could go afk being ubered and still get wax, or afk at the geyser - a location that every few hours would spew wax out, and when people burned it, the wax flew to you no matter where you were around the area. some people afk'd at campfires that gave wax.
people usually went afk due to real life schedules, and who still wanted to participate in the game and have the currency to actually enjoy it. this includes people with jobs, babysitting, school, homework, etc. it was a non-harmful way for people to spend time in game and get candles.
however, the initial implementation of the afk timer completely screwed these people over. they kept having to check in every few minutes just to make sure their efforts werent going to waste - because at that point they may as well not have had the game open in the first place.
2.5; to go with this, candle prices for items in game went sky high, esp during the first days of rainbow, where an item was 175 CANDLES. FOR A SINGLE CAPE. in fact, right now, theres an item that just makes a snowman, that costs 120. thats it.
so now, people were rightfully upset. at this point in time the timer was just in beta, and there was a huge uproar in the beta players that made tgc frantically backpedal and do damage control. they tried appeasing to us, changing the timer length, but we were still rightfully pissed. the initial timer wouldnt even allow for proper candlerunning.
eventually tgc removed it fully, only to sneak it in fully implemented into the live version of the game without mentioning it anywhere.
then, they changed it so afk locations? like the geysers and campfires? the wax doesnt automatically go to you anymore. you have to actually MOVE.
all of this is to say, they wanted to implement this to force people to be social and interact w ppl. and now you may be going, oh but austin, but kit, but but- isnt this a social game?
and yes! it is! but not everyone has TIME or ENERGY to be social! some people just wanna get on, get shit done, do some important irl work, and be done w it all! tgc shouldnt force that on people!! not everyone has the free time or the spared energy for what they want !!!!
3; the constant inflation of prices and pushes for iaps.
last year, the halloween event totaled to nearly 100$usd for all of the iaps. the aurora season is very much the same. this years halloween event was just as absurdly priced.
these arent fucking micro-transactions anymore. these are full fucking purchases. most of these range anywhere from 10 to 25 dollars. once or twice theres been 30$ ones. its insane.
and with the ingame inflation of the cost of items - most items costing anywhere from 50 to 100 candles on average, of which end up being anywhere from 3-4 days of a full candlerun minimum to NEARLY 20 DAYS OF CANDLERUNS. just for ONE item.
the more these prices raise, the more tgc pushes for iap's of candlepacks. they place a bunch of candles, seasonal or otherwise, in overpriced cosmetics packs to persuade the player to buy it.
4; its not my place to fully elaborate on this but it pisses me off so much that im mentioning it here and can/will link to anything if youre more curious on the topic; TGC. STEALS. COMMUNITY. DESIGNS.
its even in their tos! anything you make and post about the game publicly is THEIRS and they WILL use it without credit !
one of my good friends got their shit stolen TWICE NOW. and tgc hasnt just done this with them! theyve done it nearly 4 separate times, with three different people! and thats just what we KNOW. there could be tons of old content we cant find anymore that tgc had taken from! and they refuse to give any sort of credit because "its in the tos that anything you post is ours now" EVEN THOUGH THATS THE TYPE OF SHIT THAT GETS SHOW WRITERS IN TROUBLE W THE LAW.
i take a lot more issues with tgc just in general than what i wrote here, but if i included every single gripe i had with the company as a whole and not just their influence in the game at this exact moment, we would be here all day.
insert my favorite image where the company compares sky to the kim kardashian game and also the seven sins and seven virtues. yeah thats a real image. i wish i was kidding i could show you it.
