wanting to play the game again, but also feeling a little defeated

i used to play animal jam all the time when i was in younger. obviously i’m an adult now and i get this very nostalgic urge to play animal jam whenever i see it come across my social media feeds. it used to be my favorite game & i spent so many years and so much time on it, i yearn to experience that joy i once felt as a child.

as i got older i would play the game on and off periodically and because of that i was unfortunately one of the many people affected by the 2020 data breach. to say i was devastated was an under statement. all my hard work, my rares, my masterpieces were all gone. i discovered that incident a few years ago and ever since i haven’t been able to look at the game.

recently i’ve been getting so much aj content on my tiktok and i truly yearn to come back even if i have to start all over, but now i recently discovered that they removed spikes from the forgotten desert and that the entire trade market in general has inflated beyond anything i remember as a frequent player back in 2011. i truly couldn’t believe it, and now the thought of starting over and even attempting to regain the items i used to have feels impossible.

i wish the game was like it was back then, or i wish the company will someday fix things in the game and attempt to bring it back to what it used to be. i still would really love to play the game & buy a membership one day, but the thought of how hard it seems nowadays to get items just gives me too much anxiety to try again at the moment. i really loved animal jam. i hope one day i’ll be able to get over my fear and hopefully play the game again.

i guess what i wanna say is, if you’ve ever had to recently start over with nothing, how has your experience been? is it difficult to get items like spike collars? the black long has always been my favorite item, and i used to have one before i got hacked. i never had a headdress, but it was always my goal to get one when i used to play. apparently pets are also super rare now too? i also see many posts of people still getting hacked in the game even after 2020. is it still that easy to lose everything even if you start over?