So, while this will mostly be a Disney Dreamlight Valley update to talk about recent stuff and discuss the new developer update, I did want to give a bit of a blog update! In general, posts have slowed down partially due to time issues, but also just due to some health things and stress as well. You may have noticed I haven’t made posts for not!E3/Gamer Christmas yet and I’m debating this year of doing one post with my favorite games/games I’m most intrigued by that are shown during all the showcases for the first two weeks of June (I may edit it with some honorable mentions for any later ones) rather than my usual just talking about the showcases a bit and naming some games.
I don’t know if I’ll necessarily have tons to say, but I’m hoping it will be a bit more organized and lessen the number of times I end up just repeating some games.
I’ve also been working on a Hello Kitty Island Adventure post to catch up for occasional future posts (the reason it hasn’t gotten any was due to losing a lot of screenshots so I’m slowly having to retake all of them which is just… rough), but as much as I hoped it’d be out by now, I’m not entirely sure when it will be done and the frustrating reality is the longer it takes, the more I have to add to it.
Regardless, thank you for your patience and support. We’ve also gotten a lot of donations recently which really helps so much with keeping the site running and helping me afford general day to day needs.
With all that said, let’s get onto the main point of this post: Disney Dreamlight Valley.
I’m going to start with the Patch Notes just because it’s a bit easier and I figure it’s kind of the more exciting part. It’s also nice to finally see the voting up for the community-chosen companion. I don’t personally have a preference for the Animal Base so I’m more interested in the other options (According to the polls, Aesthethic/Theme will be Vote 2, Neck/Attire will be Vote 3, Head/Accessory would be Vote 4, and Vote 5 will be an Emitter/Trail). That said, it would have been nice to see an option for the Night Thorn Ferret that was often mentioned in the early DDLV Discord days.
The next patch is coming June 18th, right after the Dreamlight Parks Fest event ends essentially, and will finally give us the rest of the Skull Rock quest. I’m excited to finally give the Forgotten a new name (if only I can also give them a new look…), though, I have no clue what to name them.
I figured we’d be seeing either Peter Pan or Captain Hook first with Skull Rock so not too surprised with Peter Pan’s arrival.
I’m actually pretty excited for the upcoming Star Path rewards as I love the seashell-inspired stuff.
That said, we need to talk about the Premium Shop… again. One of the things shown is a “Never Land River Kit” which I’ll admit I don’t have full details on so some of this in just conjecture, but if that is a premium pack required to let you essentially make your own decorative river paths, it is… really obnoxious to make that Premium Shop only. It looks very pretty and maybe it is just an item, but “River kit” sounds like more than that.
The worst part though? The new Companion Bundle featuring Max. Ignoring that it’s another actual companion from the Disney universe being forced into a pay only pack, Max also has the ability to dig up resources for you. Quality of Life/Accessibility-esque perks should not be pay to access. Not to mention as someone who likes to use a lot of different companions, having to essentially have Max out for that perk as well is also kind of frustrating. I’d much rather them add a new questline that can teach all companions to be able to do this (that you can toggle on and off) rather than doing this Premium Shop exclusivity with Max on multiple levels.
Of course, with the new friendship levels, maybe some other companions can also dig for you? It’s hard to say just yet. All I know is I have a lot of companions to level up now…
The final part of the Storybook Vale will release three weeks after our Skull Rock adventures and I’m very excited to have Aurora finally in the Valley. Now all my favorite Disney princesses are in. Just hoping for Winnie the Pooh, The Rescuers, and The Great Mouse Detective still…
We received a new roadmap essentially going through the rest of the year. It seems something Inside Out-related for late Summer, a return to the Beauty and the Beast Realm for Lumiere and Cogsworth, and the update in Winter sounds like it may finally bring in Cinderella. I’m always excited for new quests and characters so those will always be my favorite parts in the game.
For those playing on Playstation, the upcoming update will finally give them crossplay as well so it’ll be nice being able to play with everyone.
Another Showcase is planned for later this year, but I’m just glad there is time to prepare for everything upcoming.
Alright! Let’s go to the next part of this post now where I talk about what I’ve been up to in Disney Dreamlight Valley and I just, I need to say this because wow did I not have enough issues with Wonderland as it is: I hate the Cheshire Cat. I think doing his friendship quests and the “Cheshire Chaos” event kind of fueled it all the more.
I’ve mentioned previously how much I wish we could have a designated event area. With the addition of Floating Islands, I have felt this all the more strongly. Trying to find things in your valley if you decorated at all or even care to some extent can be exhausting to begin with but adding tons of restrictions on how much you can even find at any given time makes it all the worse.
Regardless, before we get to the event stuff, let’s talk about the Cheshire Cat’s arrival into Dreamlight Valley and his Friendship questlines. Continuing from my last post, the theme was continued Valley chaos and I just… hated it. Would have liked to keep one of these fish though.
I then got his tree up and did his quests. These quests honestly made me feel terrible. I just felt really bad or frustrated the entire time.
For anyone who missed the Cheshire Chaos event, the event itself involved finding “Cheshire Cracks” which were glowing pink dig spots in the Valley and finding pink pawprints in various realms (Toy Story’s, Lion King’s, and Aladdin’s respectively). I thought I had taken screenshots finding these, but I guess I was so frustrated I didn’t so I only have my recording.
The annoying issues, outside of trying to find cracks in a various packed valley (You’ll notice I ended up removing a lot of things during all this), are:
1. There can only be up to five cracks at a time and they only appear every 15 minutes. They’re a pain to find, limited to how many can show up, the Valley isn’t exactly small, and these are how you get memories which has the usual memory issue where you aren’t even guaranteed to get a new one.
2. Adding to annoying limits, Paw prints are also set to 5 being present at a time (per realm) with them spawning every 15 minutes. You needed to clean up 20 per realm. It’s just an annoying way to stretch it out.
3. While if you logged in on the 15th, you could do everything at once, just like with the Cheshire Cat himself, you had to wait 4 days to be able to do the next part of the event.
And these are the things that are just so frustrating about the events. The memory system is annoying enough with how you can get repeat memories even for permanent ones– doing it for a limited time event makes it really stressful. Having event-specific things spawn on your island makes it less encouraging to even bother decorating in the first place if you may need to end up clearing things out to help find them.
Add in all the unneeded walling and it quickly feels more like a tiring chore than any kind of thing to have fun with.
Which brings us to the Dreamlight Parks fest where we’re back finding buttons that litter our island, placing decorations we may not actually want to, and once again having questlines that require waiting a couple of days for the next one on top of Mirabel’s being very tightly bound (to the point where they added the reward to everyone’s crafting table after realizing) because of Critter schedules which could be fixed if taking pictures with Critters you’ve befriended counted and/or having it not require specific different ones. You need to take a photo of Mirabel with each Squirrel (which unless it is Sunday, will take 2-3 days), feed 3 different Rabbit colors a carrot (which since most days only have two, you’re likely waiting an extra day), and take a picture with each Sea Turtle (which again, will take two days to complete due to Critter schedules) and just… If it weren’t so many tight restrictions, this could absolutely have been something to take care of in a day.
Scrooge’s were at least not too bad to take care of since using the Mining Enhancement potion actually counted unlike how it usually goes with the Star Path, but it would’ve been nice to be able to do it all at once instead of four tasks being stretched over a week by making you wait a day inbetween each.
The new popcorn buckets are cute at least.
Moving on from events, Dinah was added to the Premium Shop as we continue the official critters in the premium shop trend… Less frustrating was the Tea Party Monkey, though, I still feel the prices for Critters in the Premium Shop are just too expensive.
Finally, as usual, we’ll end off with recent Dreamsnap entries.
