Full FeedAn open letter to Nintendo: Time to fix Animal Crossing: City Folk
Dear Nintendo,
I love Animal Crossing: City Folk. Really I do. Collecting gyroids, fishing for bells, harvesting fruit for bells, selling secondhand furniture/carpet/wallpaper for bells - its good stuff.
But you’ve messed up and you need to set things right.
First of all, I’m tired of living in the Sahara. I know there’s climate change and global warming but I don’t want to see it re-enacted over the span of two weeks in my video game. Before Thanksgiving, my town was lush. It was filled with beautiful, grassy meadows. By Christmas, it’s about a step away from a barren wasteland.
Look at the area in front of my house. LOOK AT IT.
When I first started this game, there was grass there. It was green! Now LOOK! I’ve tried planting roses nearby to encourage grass to regrow but it’s been about two weeks and there’s still nothing. It’s disgraceful! I’m almost ashamed to have people over at all.
Living grass, that can regrow over barren areas or that can be trampled and die sounds like a neat idea in theory. In practice, it stinks. An event day where you have to chase around Franklin the turkey or Jingle the reindeer can devastate your environment. Or, some careless WiFi visitors could recreate a marathon around your town and ruin everything.
Sure, you can try and plant trees and flowers to encourage grass to regrow. But it’s pretty much pointless. You can destroy your town’s greenery in a matter of days, and then have to wait months for it to repair itself.
Since City Folk supports downloadable content, perhaps you could do a patch to fix the game. Or, maybe add another option to Wisp’s menu: Regrow Grass.
This may be stretching it, but one of the forthcoming downloadable items could be fertilizer that can be placed to make grass grow faster. Don’t force gamers to mess with their Wii’s internal clock or hack the game to fix their environment.
Second, you can’t play favorites with the free downloadable content. Between December 24 and 31, 2008, Japanese City Folk with their games connected to WiiConnect24 all received red Pikmin hats. This DLC item is region-free and City Folk players from other regions immediately began the dash to acquire the item.
Would it have been that difficult to release the red Pikmin hat worldwide? It works in every game. It isn’t like it’s some sort of coveted achievement or prize. You don’t need to worry about pricing.
Besides, City Folk came out at roughly the same time worldwide. On November 16, 2008, the US got it, November 20, 2008, Japan got it, and Australian and European versions followed shortly after on December 4 and 5, 2008. It doesn’t seem fair that one region would be favored over the others.
Plus, this Pikmin accessory isn’t just a one shot promotional item, it is the start of regular downloadable content. The next free DLC for Japanese players, a top, has even already been announced. They’re getting it January 1 through 15, 2009. Guess I’m going to have to stake out the City Folk communities again, in the hopes that it will be region-free and catalog-buyable as well.
So what’s the hold up?
If Nintendo wants to make 2009 bright for City Folk players, there’s only one thing to do - release all free downloadable content at the same time and create some sort of fix to save our lawns.
At the very least, announce some sort of DLC schedule for regions other than Japan.
Thanks and all the best to you and yours in the New Year,
Jenni Lada
Gamertell Assistant Editor
Read [Machi e Ikouyo: Doubutsu no Mori aka Animal Crossing: City Folk (Japanese)] Also Read [Gamertell] Also Read [Gamertell]
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Preach It!
>> First of all, I’m tired of living in the Sahara.
And the Nintendo Tech forum user reply was that this is a “gaming issue”, not a tech problem.
Sorry, chum. It *is* a tech problem! This is a very poorly implemented idea and programming that compounds the error. *If* it can be fixed ( I doubt it without a rewrite of the code and exchanging the old game disk with a new one) then your idea of fertilizer or even grass seeds would be the fix.
>> add another option to Wisp’s menu: Regrow Grass.
Or there’s that too, but again we’re looking at a rewrite of the code (kinda like adding a track editor to MK). Adding this to Wisp would ensure I was constantly looking for him Thereby Killing the Grass yet Even More!
Nintendo - eliminate this gimped feature. Or add an otion to turn it on/off for those who like it.
>> DLC
meh. While it would be nice to have it I’ll concede that this is not my main concern.
For those collectors out here what I would add is “Bring back the townie pics”.
If nothing else, let me go online and by townie pics - now I’m back in business!
thanks
on December 30, 2008 at 08:26 PM - LINKTrue. Honestly though, I can’t see sending in my disc. I’d be too scared of losing Lolly, Melba and Groucho! I’ve bonded with my animal neighbors! XD
I am hoping that eventually Nintendo listens to the disgruntled fans and finally releases some kind of fix to help out.
I’m just a bit miffed since there’s region specific holidays with items that, and it seems like the dlc is Nintendo playing favorites.
I miss the photos of townspeople as well. It was a nice little memory to help remember people in your town that you adored and moved away.
I kind of wish they’d implemented that as well - but the grass issue is my primary concern. >.<
on December 30, 2008 at 11:47 PM - LINKThank you for using your soapbox here to put a voice to the many upset Animal Crossing fans.
The DLC is a bummer, but I can live with be left out in the cold on this one for now.
The ever eroding of my snow is a major problem. For now I’m holding off on buying Wii Speak because of this.
drew
on January 11, 2009 at 01:29 PM - LINKI agree wholeheartedly. I’m not so worried about the DLC, although I don’t see why Japanese players should have all the fun.
But the grass/snow issue is a huge pain in the neck and despite Nintendo’s claims of being an aesthetic issue only, it can be game-breaking if you can’t roll snowmen or catch the grass-only bugs. And if you can’t go anywhere in your town without fear of melting everything down, where’s the fun in that?
on January 11, 2009 at 03:48 PM - LINKWhile I don’t really think the DLC is that big of an issue, I do think the whole grass thing is.
Really, a two-in-one fix would be a DLC for all regions, with either some type of grass fertilizer, as you said, or some sort of special grass seeds that keeps it from wearing down as fast.
on January 17, 2009 at 10:45 PM - LINKIt was a cute idea in concept, and I’ve only had mine since christmas and all my riverbanks, paths to nooks, and paths to houses are all worn down and ugly. ): It keeps me from making the bells I want and visiting my neighbors as often as I’d like.
I fully agree with everything you said, i hate that i can’t run around in my town! But one question not regarding this.. where did you get that shirt?
on May 9, 2009 at 03:21 PM - LINK@Paulina: The outfit in the first photo is the sailor shirt. The outfit in the second photo is one I custom-made at Able Sisters - It’s Yuffie from FFVII’s outfit.
on May 9, 2009 at 04:07 PM - LINKwow, you did a really good job! You should put it up for other players or something like that. :)
on May 11, 2009 at 11:41 AM - LINKThanks Paulina. I actually did put up one story here, giving step by step instructions for creating Chie’s outfit from Persona 4 in AC:CF. Perhaps I’ll see about taking some screenshots of the grids and have a few stories detailing how to make Yuffie’s outfit, Yuna’s kimono and a few other custom outfits I’ve done. :D
on May 11, 2009 at 12:30 PM - LINKYeah that’d be great :)
on May 12, 2009 at 09:55 AM - LINKI fully agree with the grass problem! It’s bugging me since 2 weeks after the game release. I was actually thinking about renaming my town to Arizona, if renaming would be possible.
I can’t believe they still haven’t fixed this.
Maybe i shouldn’t tell this, but the Pikmin hat was released in Europe too. I know this probably doesnt make you feel better, but in the US you get gifts too that others don’t get. As they also have different holidays, with different presents, i believe they intended to make the game different everywhere, so people would wifi more with people everywhere over the world.
on May 18, 2009 at 04:48 AM - LINK^^^ Lol @ renaming the town to Arizona
on May 20, 2009 at 10:31 PM - LINKI have tried not to run around in my town. and if grass fades away i use different routes to get to essential places (Nooks, Town Hall, etc.,) but it sucks because i picked my house mainly because it was near Nooks so I wouldn’t have to walk to long to get there. I love City Folk but I would really enjoy a way to make my grass regrow, and hopefully it won’t take months!
on June 17, 2009 at 12:17 PM - LINK