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Installed it two days ago, but it keeps crashing all the time to error codes. Today it hasn't crashed yet.

 

My friend code is 81648826676. I sent you a request Jenna.

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I am still playing a bunch and accepting anyone who adds me. I played a ton of this over the long weekend and am really loving it. It encourages me to play a little bit, check on my friends and bow out for a few hours which I was always bad about doing in the traditional Animal Crossing games. I feel like being on phones makes it extra easy to pick up and drop in little micro sessions in a way I never do with even a nintendo mobile game.

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Mobile feels like a really good fit for Animal Crossing.  A game designed around bite size interactions that refresh every couple of hours is much easier to do with a device that's always with you instead of having to carry around a gaming handheld or turn on a console.  I don't even mind the microtransaction stuff.  In a way it feels like using Leaf Tickets is counter to AC's philosophy of taking things slow and chill and letting the game develop over time.  Plus the three hour game cycle renders a lot of it unnecessary.  The only thing I've used them for so far is adding crafting slots.

 

That said, I do hope there's more to this game.  It lacks a lot of the more interesting bits that the full games have.  I've only been playing on and off for the weekend and already I feel like I've hit the limits of the game.  My favorite part of New Leaf was actually expanding and improving the town.  It made me feel like I was actually improving their little digital lives.  In Pocket Camp I'm just collecting junk to cater to the whims of whatever animal I haven't yet maxed my friendship with only to kick them out and start the process over with someone new.  I'm also disappointed that Isabelle isn't a camper I can have over.  Talking to her over in the market area just isn't the same.

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I never played Animal Crossing before so keep that in mind here, but I tried this game out over the weekend and it felt like there was nothing really to it? Go around, pick things up, give them to animals, buy stuff for your campsite. It feels very shallow. I get that customizing your campsite can be fun but to even do that you have to do the tedious item gathering step. Is this how it is in normal AC as well?

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3 minutes ago, Professor Video Games said:

I never played Animal Crossing before so keep that in mind here, but I tried this game out over the weekend and it felt like there was nothing really to it? Go around, pick things up, give them to animals, buy stuff for your campsite. It feels very shallow. I get that customizing your campsite can be fun but to even do that you have to do the tedious item gathering step. Is this how it is in normal AC as well?

 

I mean, yes? This is stripped down to a certain extent. There's no way to send mail to your animal friends, and there's no museum to prove that you've caught all the fish and bugs in the game, but this is a fairly faithful representation of what the game is like. Instead of only being able to build x amount of furniture in a day due to timers, the shops have a set amount that they sell and once you've bought it, it doesn't restock till the next day. Fruit grows back on a much longer timer and there's no fertilizer to make it grow back faster normally. It's a game where you're supposed to log in for a little bit each day, pull any weeds that have grown, & check in on your animal friends giving presents and talking to them. Newer games have projects that you earn money to do improvements to your town, like putting in a fountain or whatever. I actually like that this game gives you way more animals to interact with than the main series games do. You have more control over who you hang out with here than in the standard games. You also have a more visible representation of how much your animal friends like you, which the main games doesn't have.

 

If you find the act of shaking trees for peaches and fishing tedious, then there's not much for you here or in the regular games.

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Good overview, Jenna.

 

I've come to the game after playing New Leaf since January and getting quite addicted (as well as having weeks-long dry spells now and then). I've been really enjoying the mobile game - a lot of the elements (the cuteness, the sound design etc) that I enjoy on the 3DS game are there. And although it plays differently, I was enjoying the process of leveling up. Lately though, I've hit something of a wall in terms of how much stuff I can make for my animal pals. I *think* it's now at a point where I either buy the craft items with leaf tickets (which I'm reluctant to do) or just wait much longer to receive the craft items as rewards from my animal friends.

 

Anyway.  It's still grabbing me at least once a day, and it's cool that you can add friends so easily. My ID is 5624 6274 650 and I've added all of you lot above.

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ty all for being my friends. they added some more animal friends and have given a temporary boost to how much friendship you get for completing errands. I'm still playing and accepting friendship requests!

 

Pro tip - if you open up 'more' you can click on My Nintendo and accept all the bonuses, plus if you click the 'Missions' tab there are more things you may have completed. This will give you points that you can spend on materials or bells!

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After playing for a bit, here's my $0.02 on things that need to be changed.

 

  • Some sort of interaction between friends besides kudos and market place things.  Perhaps fishing/bug hunting competitions?  The quarry thing is very gimmicky and the timing of it never works out to have 5 people help you at any one time.  It's a system flawed by the way everyone has a unique playing pattern throughout their day.
  • Make items sortable.
  • Make items for the friend's marketplace searchable.
  • Items on sale by NPCs (clothes and furniture) needs to be more than 3 at a time.  I believe the reason people stick with these games is for the personalization of your character and your space.  They don't offer a high level of personalization soon enough to really keep some players engaged.
  • Mini-games would be nice.  Something besides waiting for the fish to bite or the bugs to be in range.

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1 hour ago, SamKD said:

The quarry thing is very gimmicky and the timing of it never works out to have 5 people help you at any one time.  It's a system flawed by the way everyone has a unique playing pattern throughout their day.

 

I'm with you on the other stuff, but I've never had a problem with this. You put out your request early in the day and then check it again late in the day and it's fine? I mean I am probably near the limit cap on friends so that might have something to do with it. The problem with the quarry is the whole acting of asking for help is so tedious when you have a long friend list. It's three taps to send one request, and takes easily around 5 minutes to get through the whole list (which if you don't know who's going to decide that's a day they're not playing, you want to do just to make sure you're covered). But yeah, basically I have been able to visit the quarry for like at least a week consecutively. It's just a hassle is all. The easy solve there would be "ask for help from all your friends" as a single button press, but I guess that runs counter to them wanting you to pay leaf tickets to get in.

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I think it would also be nice if they put some kind of indicator on the main screen that you had requests for help.  When you get a new friend request or a kudos, you'll get a blue dot icon on the menu button but a quarry help request icon is only shown when you actually look at your friends list next to the person asking.  I've probably missed several requests simply because I just didn't know they were there.

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On 12/13/2017 at 7:08 PM, juv3nal said:

 

I'm with you on the other stuff, but I've never had a problem with this. You put out your request early in the day and then check it again late in the day and it's fine? I mean I am probably near the limit cap on friends so that might have something to do with it. The problem with the quarry is the whole acting of asking for help is so tedious when you have a long friend list. It's three taps to send one request, and takes easily around 5 minutes to get through the whole list (which if you don't know who's going to decide that's a day they're not playing, you want to do just to make sure you're covered). But yeah, basically I have been able to visit the quarry for like at least a week consecutively. It's just a hassle is all. The easy solve there would be "ask for help from all your friends" as a single button press, but I guess that runs counter to them wanting you to pay leaf tickets to get in.

I guess I sort of misunderstood the mechanic and assumed that the 'help' recruited only lasted for the 3-hour cycle whatever bonus item is up.  Now that I know it's just a daily thing I'll do as you say and request a bunch of help in the morning and wait til the unique-item of the season is there (candy-canes right now).

 

But you're absolutely right.  Things need to be streamlined in this game.  Actually, considering the number of button presses to turn in a request, I'm half surprised we don't have a "move to this map" confirmation pop up. So. Many. Pop ups.

Current sequence for turning in a quest:

Click on friend> go through dialog> choose turn in request> confirm turn in request>  dialog> press ok for rewards> dialog> wait for friend points to apply.

There's _at least_ two steps in here that can be cut down.

 

I played the GC animal crossing such a long time ago, and I didn't really dedicate a lot of time to it... is this historically just how we should expect the game going forward?  If so, I think I'm going to forget about it sooner than later.  If there is room for it to more closely emulate whatever was great about the previous games, I'm all for that. but as-is, it's pretty dang flawed, and slow.

 

Oh, and as a side note, I think this kinda doesn't teach the right lessons about money management? I mean, you get a car upgrade, and it just slaps you with a "loan."  I know the old games also had a system like this for upgrading your home...I dunno...I was just thinking that if this is going to be marketed toward kids (it's cute characters and animals, let's not ignore that this is clearly either 1) marketed towards children, or 2) marketed towards those nostalgic) that maybe they could include some small system for interest?  Maybe it could be a teachable moment in a game that there are consequences for taking on tons of debt and/or paying for things you can't afford?  Maybe that's my own jaded view that our education system as it is currently doesn't do enough to teach personal finance...

Perhaps this game could be better if it had a Hat-Economy situation vis a vis other online transactional nonsense.  I don't want it to sound like I want it to become a super-micro-transaction hell, but...maybe?

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1 hour ago, SamKD said:

I played the GC animal crossing such a long time ago, and I didn't really dedicate a lot of time to it... is this historically just how we should expect the game going forward?  If so, I think I'm going to forget about it sooner than later.  If there is room for it to more closely emulate whatever was great about the previous games, I'm all for that. but as-is, it's pretty dang flawed, and slow.

 

 

I would have assumed that you really like AC given your KK Slider avatar.

 

Lots of people don't like this version of the game. Here's a whole piece about game designers' reactions to it. They're largely pretty negative! https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/311352/What_devs_are_saying_about_the_design_of_Animal_Crossing_Pocket_Camp.php

 

I think what any one person likes about Animal Crossing is deeply personal. Some people like decorating their houses the most. Some people like designing clothes. Some people get super into flower breeding. Some people just really like sending letters to their animal friends in town.

 

My favorite part of the games are the animal friends, so I really love getting to see more animal friends than I ever got to see in the DS or 3DS games.

 

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2 hours ago, jennegatron said:

I would have assumed that you really like AC given your KK Slider avatar.

 

I'm a sucker for cool dogs

 

pug-sunglasses.jpg

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Apropos of nothing in particular, I do want to note that the microtransaction grind is not especially onerous. I haven’t been playing every day (and at most play 2 “cycles” on days I do play) and have been able to get all the christmas items, all the extra crafting slots, and both kk and tom nook chairs with 100+ leaf tickets left over.

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1 hour ago, juv3nal said:

Apropos of nothing in particular, I do want to note that the microtransaction grind is not especially onerous. I haven’t been playing every day (and at most play 2 “cycles” on days I do play) and have been able to get all the christmas items, all the extra crafting slots, and both kk and tom nook chairs with 100+ leaf tickets left over.

 

 

Yeah, I haven't spent any money and the game has been extremely generous with tickets. i haven't spent tickets on speeding things up really, which is why i have ~170 tickets right now. I also bought the super cute floral van paint job. I am at level 40 and still jamming on this game pretty hard. I've unlocked all the animals that are currently in the game, but haven't invited ~1/3 - ~1/4 of them to my campsite yet.

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