Twinkle bloody twinkle.

Warning for the TL;DR crowd. Posted at BFM, too!

If you're like me, you'll log on our lovely Stardoll every day without really thinking about it: you'll press the enter key on your keyboard or click the login button without so much as a second glance, heading straight towards your suite to change your look or making a beeline to your messages in order to catch up with friends. Most of the time you won't just get messages from friends, you'll get mails from Stardoll, too, and these tend to be about whatever store or collection has just been released. But today, we all got something a little different…


Oh, dear.

That's right. A new and very much unnerving change to the system, which, not only is going to be uncomfortable to get used to, will ultimately give users hassle in the long run. This is separatism in a new form: I, for one, was outraged about the introduction of 'royalty' as I believed at the time that it was just a way to make some users seem better than others. Honestly, that rage subsided quickly when it came to light that Royalty is just a bunch of nonsense with no other purpose than giving a diamond on our user because OOH, SHINY. LOOK HOW IMPRESSIVE THEY MUST BE BECAUSE THEY HAVE A DIAMOND!
Nothing really became of Royalty, and I don't think much ever will - it's something that could actually be changed to great effect. Levels, however, will make things a whole lot worse. Imagine, if you will, a Stardoll newbie, sending blank friend requests to levels 50+. Imagine a 50+ user removing all of those people who, in their eyes, aren't of a high enough level to be on their friends list. Obviously I'm not saying that's how the majority of people are going to behave, but when you think about it, it's a very real and very large possibility - one that I feel like is going to create a very tangible divide.

The thing is, though, is that Starpoints are essentially the same as they were before - but now to earn Starpoints, you do what you would do to earn Starcoins, which will be spent on upcoming Starpoint rewards, and thus the cycle continues.

In my opinion, there are two ways to improve the new system - instead of Stardoll saying "challenge yourself!" they should challenge us. I personally have never had the motivation to earn starcoins, so I believe if they actually set us daily tasks or "missions", they'd be more successful.

Two, rewards should be free. It's a pretty basic point and we are all constantly yelling about how much we really hate Stardoll and how they never do anything to actually benefit the users, so that could be the first step on the frankly massive staricase that leads to our collective respect for the website. How many of us will look at this change and just not be able to contain our sighs? Our "Oh, Stardoll…s? We will roll our eyes and pull a sad frown, like they are the child who just drew all over our nicely wallpapered walls - walls that were well established and that we all were accustomed to - and we are the disappointed parents. To be seen as the "parents" of Stardoll would be a fine thing - they would do well to remember without us, they are nothing - but what is a few voices of disappointment in nearly one hundred and eighty million?

Food for thought.

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In other painful and massively unnecessary change news: the shopping tags in the Starplaza are bigger now, a move plainly made to show off the ~designer brands~. Another thing that will create hassle, because if people see your designer brands, you're automatically more rich and important and therefore more worthy of attention. Duh!

That awkward moment when the shopping tag is larger than the dress…

Plus, they're really bloody inconvenient. I tried to purchase the socks in question, and had to click several times before I actually could drag the damn things and many times, I ended up with the shoes the socks are under instead. ARGH! Be careful when you're dragging stuff now, or you might get a nasty shock about your new purchases.

(Oh how I've missed posting! Sorry for the long-ass round up, I'm just a little peeved.)

What do you think about the new system?