If you had the world play the Disney word association game, most people would probably default to princesses or cartoons. I, however, genuinely associate the entertainment giant with video games . I grew up on licensed games, and even as a kid I could tell the Disney ones were of a higher quality. My PlayStation 1 saw countless hours of Monster's Inc. Scream Team, while the family computer introduced me to the Interactive Storybooks starring Winnie the Pooh. So when Gameloft announced Dreamlight Valley, my instant response was that I may have finally found the farming game for me.
Sims are something I theoretically love, they check a lot of my boxes, but somehow I always bounce right off of them. Stardew Valley lived up to the hype, but I stopped playing after only scratching the surface. I gave Dreamlight Valley a start, and out of nowhere, I'm at over 100 hours now.
Turns out my problem with other farming sims was that I couldn't talk to Simba.
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Dreamlight Valley is currently in early access, and you can play it by purchasing any variation of the "founder's pack", or do what I do and use Xbox Game Pass. Over time I've seen it evolve; placement images getting replaced, texture and placement glitches fixed, and that storyline wrapped up in a way I feel was surprisingly excellent for what will, eventually, be a licensed free-to-play game.
That's the other thing: once Dreamlight Valley leaves early access it will become free-to-play. Like all free-to-play games, there are microtransactions, they've been there since launch. Sure it's odd to offer these to the players who already ponied up, but early access is ultimately fans-turned-QA-testers, so it's good to see exactly how these microtransactions look as early as possible. Especially when they suddenly change overnight.
The digital currency for Dreamlight Valley is Moonstones. For the majority of the game's life, the Moonstones were for unique cosmetic items and allowed you to enter timed events called Star Paths. These events let you win tickets just for doing basic activities you would likely already be doing, and trade those tickets in for more limited-time cosmetics and extra Moonstones.
I know the crowd that hates all microtransactions will say even this is too much, but frankly, I was completely fine with this system. I even earned some of these items and I never forked over my cash aside from my Gamepass subscription, as you also earn free Moonstones every day because a blue chest will spawn somewhere in the Valley. Plus, if you miss a day, then come back the day after, both chests will be waiting for you! They don't pile up to the moon or anything, but players have reported finding sometimes three or four of them after taking a break. All in all, it was pretty simple and easy to accept.
All seemed to be going well. Until Dapper WALL-E was released.
You know WALL-E? Little guy, don't know what he does, I haven't seen the movie. As the image shows, for a whopping 4,000 Moonstones, you get to dress up WALL-E in a suit and then go on a series of quests. Up until this point, all quests were free. You got them because an update added them, or because you befriended a Disney Villager, and crucially there was no way to use Moonstones to speed up the process up.
Moonstones are the only way to play this brand-new questline with a popular character. WALL-E was also recently used in a timed quest where you collected Easter eggs, and I doubt that's a coincidence. You get the eggs for free, but if you want to see what WALL-E gets up to in a suit, you need to pay up.
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Breaking the trend for quests worries me, and it's not like I never had worries before. Long-time fan speculation on Reddit is that new Villagers would end up as Moonstone purchases, even though all previous ones were free. I looked for official statements on both the game's official website and Twitter, but have so far found nothing to directly confirm the fear.
I did, however, find an article from this past January over at GameRant that covered everything Gameloft announced and some speculations based on those announcements, but the Moonstones weren't part of the conversation, which really just means Gameloft did a good job of keeping this change a secret.
Now, I do have something that could be used as evidence for future characters needing Moonstones, and it involves the achievement system.
When a game releases in its base form, Trophies and Achievements have to be approved by Sony and Microsoft, and there's a stipulation that every single achievement has to be achievable without any further purchases. Meaning; free-to-play games have to let you earn all achievements without a single Microtransaction.
Dreamlight Valley has an Achievement named "Renovator", requiring you to build 30 houses for Disney Villagers. The way Achievements work in this game is that there's a tally in the menu that keeps track of every activity you do, so you need to check it off in the menu and the Achievement pops. Up until the Remembering update that released June 7, the number in that menu also said 30. The day that update went live, the number shrank to 12! Call me crazy, but this feels like Gameloft quietly admitting they have a lot of planned characters already, and they were going to be free, but now no longer will.
That leaves a very big elephant (or, rather, Bellephant) in the room.
Dreamlight Valley's marketing, startup screen, and purchase page on each storefront all use the same image, showing the generic version of the player character among a few Disney characters. Some versions are longer, so they include characters like Scar, but even the shortened versions make sure to include WALL-E and Belle. As Belle is not yet in the game, putting her in all these images is almost certainly a statement she will be added eventually.
That should be exciting news, but with the recent implementation of Moonstones to unlock quests, I'm now concerned that Belle could be the first character, of many future ones, that we'll need Moonstones to unlock.
So my advice? Treat your Moonstones like your favorite character will be coming one day, don't even think about the hats or the Star Paths anymore. Save them up, because soon you may be using those Moonstones for way more important things than cosmetics. This isn't the direction I want Dreamlight Valley to take, but it seems to be where we're heading.
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