Daily Gem/Star Login Rewards Recently Line Play changed the login reward reset time to 9am EST / 6am PST. I’m not sure why they changed it, but it’s now 7 hours earlier and no longer follows the usual quest reset time. If you're a veteran Line Play-er you already know a lot has changed since the early days of daily login rewards. There used to be at least 3 mystery ‘?’ items rewarded every month. It’s always an exciting moment to reveal mysterious monthly fashion items. They had fun themed designs, and the item near the end of the month was occasionally a free aura! Imo it was worth the wait and better than gems. 

Less Gems is More? I’ve seen many complaints that before the update the total daily rewards were actually more than they are now. It’s true that you get 2,000 less gems, however that’s not counting the free stars allowing you to rank up for free. Also the VIP system rewards you 5,000 gems (or 24,000 gems total for the month) for ranking up to a gold crown which includes other great benefits!

Changes for the better... If you haven’t kept up to date with the notices or updates Line Play made a few minor and major tweaks which have quite a big impact on the overall game. 

Pet Quest for 300 Gems Pets have joined Line Play as well as a new quest to earn 300 gems everyday for petting any 3 pets! 

Room Quest reduced from 20 friends to 5 It was difficult enough, and way too time consuming when you had to invite 20 unique friends, but now it only requires 5!

Send 20 Hearts for 500 gems Sending 20 hearts now rewards you with 500 gems instead of 300! You no longer get 10 gems for sending a heart to someone, but the extra 200 gems makes up for it. Avatar of the Day This feature has been wiped from Line Play’s existence for now. It was cool being avatar of the day way back then, but over recent changes it’s become less and less relevant. Being avatar of the day a long time ago was somewhat on the same level of being a celebrity. Everyone knew you were avatar of the day, you got showered with friend requests, diary comments/stickers, and having your avatar posted in friends and strangers diaries if you didn’t already figure out what’s going on. In update 3.0+ it was revamped as ‘suggested friends’ and lost some of it’s appeal. Apparently friends had different avatar of the day avatars, so none of them really stood out anymore. Even brand new avatars were given an opportunity in the avatar of the day spotlight. It’s nice being one of those new players and getting a ton of friend requests, but most of them are actually spam/helper accounts. Their one purpose on Line Play is to send hearts or gifts to their true masters or friends. This limits the avatar of the day spots for average people you can have conversation with or expect any response from. It’s not gone forever though; I have a feeling that the feature will return in the future once they work out the kinks in it.

Heart Spam Drama In update 4.0.0.0 they’ve removed the ability to ‘heart spam’ or give someone numerous hearts on a picture they posted in their diary profile. There was no limit on how many hearts you could obtain on your profile. In other words this was literally a loophole for an endless supply of ‘free’ gems if you put in the effort. Every heart is 10 gems for you and the player receiving the heart, and after a while things start to add up. Thousands of players were taking advantage of this feature by creating multiple avatars to send hearts, and accumulate a large sum of hearts and gems with ease. Line Play went to the extent of banning players with ridiculous amounts of hearts, but that only served as a temporary fix. To solve the chaos they brought upon themselves they simply removed the problem all together in the new update. A sudden change taking away the majority of players source of ‘free gems’ has flipped the community upside down though. It only makes matters worse due to the fact that Line Play revolves around in-game currency and ‘luck’. If they had fixed this sooner it might not have blown up in their face like it did recently. It’s pretty ironic that players are upset about a feature being removed, when they are the ones who are the reason for it. Until then I hope the system is being revised and will return in the future with some restrictions.

Recycling Reborn Recycling has been reworked boasting the bonus it deserves. The recycling system now rewards up to 4x the amount of gems you would normally receive depending on your VIP rank. Monday’s used to be the days to recycle for a 2x recycling bonus, but now its any time, any day as long as you’re at least a gold crown rank. The only issue is that some duplicate items don’t stack and are valued at 0 gems, although I’m not sure if this is still a problem with 4.0.0.0.

Revised Gem Prices [View Table] What’s the most bang for your buck? The obvious choice is the Play Pass if you’re a daily player with patience, and not interested in VIP benefits. If you absolutely need gems because there’s a new gacha, and you must have loads of gems right away to get the items you want that’s a whole different story.

Right away you can see that they bumped up prices of all gems and removed either the 5.99/11.99 deal. Maybe they wanted to simplify it or it didn’t fit in with the new VIP star system. The regular amount of gems you receive when there isn’t any bonus gem sale are in grey, and the gems per dollar are listed above the sale prices in black. There’s some really strange values, but previously without any sales you got a handful more gems more for your money. 

If you look at the bonus gems before and after you’ll see that you get a lot more gems, but you’re only able to get that bonus once. After the first purchase you get less gems than before.  

Gem Price Conclusion Countless people are upset over new gem prices, so I made a table comparing the old gem prices with the new gem prices including the VIP diamond rank 10% bonus (which I assume lasts for every purchase during the rest of the month that you are diamond rank if bearing the diamond crown isn’t enough). In conclusion you do get slightly less gems (to be exact about $5~$10 comparing the highest purchase of $99.99), but its a trade off for the many special benefits of being a VIP member which imo seems worth it.

Revised Cash Prices I won’t go into too much detail unless someone specifically requests a full comparison table similar to the gems. It’s pretty much straight forward that you’re getting a tad less cash at the price of VIP benefits. VIP doesn’t come cheap, and I don’t think Line Play has any intention of lowering costs. In a few other games I’ve played VIP can cost upwards of $500. Updating the game, adding new gachas and hosting servers isn’t free. You have the freedom to make a fuss about it, but there are two things you should consider. Is it really worth ruining your mood and being upset over a game over the slight amount of cash you’re missing out? The prices are set in stone however it doesn’t represent the various sale/bonuses Line Play may have in the future. In the end it’s your decision whether you choose to support Line Play or not. As a free to play player it would be nice to earn a little cash in-game, as it does feel limiting not being able to spin newly released gachas. Maybe give players an option to use gems or cash to spin, or allow cash to have a better chance of getting rarer items like it does with the Jackpot wheel (I think?). The free gem styles and costumes are getting old and not everyone can afford cash/VIP.

VIP Benefits [Large Image] This is the pride and glory of the 4.0 update. Quite a few people would say the opposite and who knows, maybe it’s a curse? Most of it is already explained in the picture above, but I’ll elaborate on a few things that may not be clear. VIP Castle If you reach platinum rank you gain access to the VIP castle which is exactly what I figured it would be. A very fancy ‘official’ Line Play avatar room. There you can see all of the items available in the gacha right before your eyes, and even the Queen herself! (I’ll add a picture when I have access later on).

Stars & VIP Crown Ranks Stars are earned by purchasing gems, cash, hearts or through special promotions (such as a lucky bag). You can also get up to 75 stars for free every month which can rank you up from a white crown to gold. For the month of March 2016 only, you’re exclusively able to achieve platinum rank for about 5-6 days before the month ends. After that every month you will reset to white crown rank. The max rank for logging in collecting the daily bonus is gold crown (with 20 extra stars). At first I thought It was 200 stars total to diamond, but that’s actually the number of stars to the next rank. So that’s 55 stars to gold, 130 stars to platinum, and 330 stars to the elusive diamond crown rank.

VIP Diamond Crown Rank Money wise it’s about $274 per month to hold the diamond crown above your head; assuming you login everyday to claim the free stars and there aren’t any special promotions. That’s 2 x $100 (190 stars) + 1 x $50 (49 stars) + 1 x $24 (24 stars) purchase for a grand total of $274 including 338 stars, 1775 cash, and 15k gems for ranking up. You could buy gems as well, but what’s the point if the VIP castle/gacha requires a cash fee to try your luck. Also most animated gacha require cash to spin. Technically Line play is giving away about $75 worth of stars, and $20 worth of gems for free because it will cost you $350 without obtaining any daily star rewards. As a free to play player I scramble to pickup whatever Line Play throws at us at no cost, although it can be frustrating at times with bad luck. VIP Rank benefits also apply including Gift Shop 1+1 benefits meaning whatever you send to anyone as gift will be delivered to your mailbox as well with kind regards from Sebastian himself. For gacha/collector enthusiasts 4x recycling bonus, 12.5k inventory, 15% off animated gacha and 10% extra gems when charging are a nice combo.

Ultra Rare Exclusive Gacha Items! If you made it to platinum rank I wish you good luck in getting your hands on the most prized possessions in Line Play. Ultra Rare fashion and interior items that sparkle and shine giving off a brilliant radiating glow, so powerful you’ll entrance others around you to smile in awe as their eyes twinkle while drooling all over their devices. According to Line Play the limited VIP gacha in the VIP castle will have a new theme, and story every month which I’ll be looking forward to stare at and admire. *Note: The 10x spin is temporary as an event.

Makeup Gachas! If it troubles you sacrificing your entire months savings just to change your eyes in the face shop, you can give the new gachas with makeup items a shot. Line Play has added a new makeup inventory to carry your extra cheeks, eyebrows, lips, eyes, noses or mouths that you can swap out on the fly! Take a chance win a pair of eyes or cheeks you always dreamed of. Hopefully they’ll introduce new makeup items that aren’t all rare or super rare, and maybe even makeup only gachas for a limited time.

Pets have arrived! [Large Image] The feature everyone’s waiting for has finally been implemented! Pets have arrived and are slowly taking over Line Play. Currently there are only 2 types of pets available for purchase at the Pet Shop. Cuddly kittens or cheerful puppies; either one is a bundle of joy that will brighten up your day as they hop around your room anxiously waiting to be pet. Calling, Petting and Friendship You can call a pet to come visit by tapping the pink paw bubble. You may have to wait a few seconds for your pet(s) to appear. If it doesn’t come you can re-enter your room, and they will show up eager to be pet. Tap the hand bubble to pet your pet, and gain +1 friendship shown by the gold/orange paw print. When it’s friendship level reaches 100 it will permanently move in with you, so it will always be roaming around your room, and you won’t have to call it every 3 hours. For cash pets the maximum friendship is 200, although I don’t really see a reason for it (even if the gift for reaching max friendship is rarer than other pet gifts). I’m hoping they add a much wider variety of pets like bunnies, bears, sheep, pigs or maybe even creatures like frogs!?

Taking care of your pet update [3/17] [Large Image] Tap on your pet and see how it reacts! No matter which pet you decide to buy it’s up to you to keep it happy by calling and petting it everyday until it’s friendship level reaches the max (100 or 200). Also note you can only have a maximum of 2 pets out at a time. >.< Hopefully an update changes that. Calling your pet You’re able to call a pet up to 10 times a day. The first time is free everyday; after that you can call it again every 3 hours for free or pay 1,000 gems to call it instantly up to 9 times. The 10 calls available reset daily along with quests. Pet book, Gifts, and Memo If you open the pet book you can see all of the pets you own as well as pets you haven’t purchased yet at the pet shop. Tapping on the gift box in the top right will take you to the gift collection. Gifts can be obtained from reaching 100 friendship with a pet, and are limited to 1 unique gift per pet. If you would like to see more information about your pet you can tap the yellow ‘Details’ button in the pet book. On this page you can view everything about your pet like the day you first met. You can also edit your pets Memo (although I don’t think anyone can see it besides you), but it may be viewed by others when your pet reaches max friendship or in a future update.

Reaching 100/200 Max Friendship with a Pet! [3/19] [Large Image] After reaching 100 friendship with your pet they’ll move in with you forever! They also reward you with a gift which you can place in your room. I received a fork from Calico Cat, and a bone from Mixed Breed. Its status will change to ‘My Pet’ from ‘Out and About’ and you will be able to view the gift as well. When your pet comes out to greet you, the golden my pet badge with a pink ribbon will shine above it. Also Line Play wasn’t joking when they said forever. They’ll follow you everywhere you go! Outside your room, in other strangers or friends rooms (doesn’t work in room party), or even official avatars rooms! Tap your pet and see what happens. Also try eating, bathing, sitting, or napping with your pets. You’ll be in for a cute surprise! :)

Pet Quest Update [3/17] To complete the daily pet quest you have to pet any 3 pets. You will only see pets in friends rooms if they have called them out, and you haven’t completed the pet quest yet. If a pets friendship level reaches max you will see them regardless if the quest is available or not. Friends can see and pet your pets only after you have called your pet, and they have the quest available. Sadly your pets can only be pet by 1 friend or stranger until the daily quest reset. Although you’ll gain +1 friendship points from whoever pets your pet! Note: When you reach max friendship you can only pet your pet 1x per day. Also you’ll no longer receive notifications when your pet is pet.

Curious about Curious Closets? The curious closet rewards you for obtaining hint items in specific gachas or the gift shop. Tap the bubbles to find out what items you have to acquire, and where to get them.

Curious Closets Gifts & Wish Lists You can add hint items to your wishlist or share it in your diary, and ask friends to help you complete the curious closet. Use the Gift Shop 1+1 Benefit (VIP Gold Rank or higher) to help friends out while helping yourself too! Sebastian will gift you whatever item you send to your friends no matter the cost. After collecting a curious closet item you must wear it to complete it.

Curious Closets Gacha Hints Here’s a preview of what the hint item looks like for curious closet items in gachas. The hint item is highlighted in a sparkling pink circle with a ribbon as well as a curious closet banner. You’ll know when you receive a curious closet item because the curious closet banner will be appear above the gacha item.

Get Curious Closets Gifts! After collecting both curious closet items you must wear them to complete the curious closet. If you’re not wearing an item needed for curious closet, but it’s in your inventory the item will be shown in grey with an ‘owned’ banner. When you’re ready to receive your gift press ‘get gift’, and it will take you to the curious closet screen. Tap ‘get gift’ again to receive the special item waiting for you in the brightly glowing bubble. If you want you can share it in your diary to celebrate that you’ve found a mystery item, and completed curious closets! To me the curious closet seems like a sneaky way to promote gachas, which isn’t so bad if you have an interest in that particular gacha and/or mystery item.

Update on Curious Closets [3/17] Curious Closet events only last a few days so be sure to double check the dates, so the rewards are still available after obtaining the hint items! I’m not sure if Curious Closets will always follow this pattern, but typically they require a gacha item and a wishlist item. Also the latest has included a cash gacha -.- although it does reward a super rare makeup item.