Hacking AC:NL

[will.]

I have mixed feelings about hacking.
One one hand, I like hacking, because you can change the whole town layout, have your dream villagers you always wanted, and have all the items! People seem to really like hackers and their ability to generate anything into ACNL.
But on the other hand, I don't really like it that much, since it takes all of the purpose of the game away, like you can just generate all the stuff and not work hard to earn it.

i've been comenting on this thread a lot but....

i dont believe that the purpose of acnl is to work for everything. i think the purpose is to enjoy a small life as a mayor and control the town. if people want to advance faster and get advantages easier, they can hack and do so. but i don't believe that the purpose of the game is to work for a great town, even though that may be a goal along the way.

 

[Tomoe Hotaru]

i've been comenting on this thread a lot but....

i dont believe that the purpose of acnl is to work for everything. i think the purpose is to enjoy a small life as a mayor and control the town. if people want to advance faster and get advantages easier, they can hack and do so. but i don't believe that the purpose of the game is to work for a great town, even though that may be a goal along the way.

Don?t worry about comenting a lot, I really enjoyed all your coments. It?s nice to see someone with a very positive view on hacking and actual knowledge about it clearing up misconceptions.

That said, I feel many people see hacking as too "black and white" if that makes any sense. Of course you can take away the fun of the game by getting everything you want instantly, but hacking isn?t just about that and no one is forcing you to take advantage of that feature. It?s a bit like time travel - some people use it to travel 10 minutes back to go to Retail one last time before it closes, other people travel years at a time to quickly earn a lot of bells in interest and get the weeding badge faster.
You can do both and you have to do neither.
My view of hacking is so positive because I see it as a great tool I would defintely use to change names or the place of a PWP if I spent a lot of time working on a town and don?t want to sell it for such a "trivial" matter. Would I ever hack items, dreamies, my map or something like that? - no, why should I? I?m one of those people who think that their fun in the game would be greatly lowered by getting certain things too easily. But that doesn?t mean that I wouldn?t use hacking to reverse descisions I made but which the game won?t allow me to alter.
Hacking has many uses, no one tells you that you have to get every rare item if you just want to change your mayor?s face...you just need to not do it...

 

[will.]

Don?t worry about comenting a lot, I really enjoyed all your coments. It?s nice to see someone with a very positive view on hacking and actual knowledge about it clearing up misconceptions.

That said, I feel many people see hacking as too "black and white" if that makes any sense. Of course you can take away the fun of the game by getting everything you want instantly, but hacking isn?t just about that and no one is forcing you to take advantage of that feature. It?s a bit like time travel - some people use it to travel 10 minutes back to go to Retail one last time before it closes, other people travel years at a time to quickly earn a lot of bells in interest and get the weeding badge faster.
You can do both and you have to do neither.
My view of hacking is so positive because I see it as a great tool I would defintely use to change names or the place of a PWP if I spent a lot of time working on a town and don?t want to sell it for such a "trivial" matter. Would I ever hack items, dreamies, my map or something like that? - no, why should I? I?m one of those people who think that their fun in the game would be greatly lowered by getting certain things too easily. But that doesn?t mean that I wouldn?t use hacking to reverse descisions I made but which the game won?t allow me to alter.
Hacking has many uses, no one tells you that you have to get every rare item if you just want to change your mayor?s face...you just need to not do it...

yes yes!! you made very good points. a lot of people think hacking is an extreme thing where you have to go change everything in your town. you don't have to. you can still have loads of gun hacking, otherwise hacking wouldn't be a giant thing.

 

[pawpatrolbab]

I personally hate how people say that hacking "ruins" the game or your experience, when the whole point of Animal Crossing is that you get to play the game in your own way. If anything hacking really optimizes the pleasure that you can get out of the game imo. I haven't personally hacked, but I would like to so that I can move rocks and put villagers houses where I'd like them

 

[Mr_Persona]

a lot of people lose their town because they do silly things with hacking, or they don't know how to do it properly. if you read up on what you're doing, and follow instructions carefully, you can hack just fine without having your town corrupted. (you should always keep a town backup if you want to hack. people who don't have a backup can't complain if they lose their town.) the people who can hack, and know what they're doing can do impressive stuff and make beautiful towns. it's always impressive.

Still I'm pretty scared of what people do when they hack their towns.

 

[Wii8461]

I hack because I bought the game in 2013 and after playing it legit up until early 2016... I just got bored. But I loved the game still. I tried to bring a little fun back into it. I actually did keep my legit save 100% separate from any hacked ones. I had a goal to get all gold badges... But I stopped with 6 left. When the update rolled out in 2016 I tried playing back on the legit save for a like 5 months.
Then I made more hacks to try and spice it up again.
To be honest the hacking was a lot of fun. I actually have created my own, and didn't just get the normal public ones. (Which fyi, these public ones do not support seeding) but I did overall have more fun when I played the game legit. I just chose to either at this point,
A:Never touch the game again
-or-
B: Hack it.

I have ranted about anti-hacking comments before, only because I have some people tell me some really nasty **** for something like dropping a tree on the online island. Like it was a bell tree because some kid wanting bells. And I just do it because the people playing now are the "Mom bought it because it was 20 dollars" they aren't really trying to be a fan of the game if they want to do that. And Ive done the "catch beetles" speech... And they dont care, not really worth trying at this point. They get all excited when I drop bells and that makes them happy, I guess. But hacking a video game just doesn't feel like what a criminal would do, but some of the comments are made out like that. (Which insults are no better than hacking)

I do not, however, ever like someone seeding a town. Griefing a town is complete crap. And that is when an immature or inconsiderate person obtains or begs another for a hack. Most of those hacks were leaked and don't belong in their hands. These seeder people have no real hacking experience what so ever, they just found something on the internet somewhere and choose to be a brat with it. Seeding could be useful, to decorate another town maybe, but then these kids come and abuse it. Most of the hacking community do not support this.

Anyways... If I could have the desire to play legit again I would. I just hold out for a Switch version now!!! (Which I hope to play legit for at least a couple years)

 

[Lily Mayor]

Well if I would hack/could I would do it for the creativity, I mean it would be cool to have trees on rivers ect.

 

[-Blue-]

Personally, as long as no one is trying to harm me or my game in any way or form, I am fine with however they choose to enjoy it.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

In my opinion, hacking is bad, not just because it?s cheating, but it?s quite dangerous and it can completely screw up your game. I never tried it, and I haven?t played online with one.

 

[Shellzilla_515]

I get really skeptical to hackers because I always thought that there was a risk of getting a damaged save file. But not all hackers are bad and I know this from experience. I've played with this one person who has a hacked town and regardless of it, he's pretty nice. In fact, he holds sleepovers for those who hang out with him!

 

[xSuperMario64x]

I, personally, have always been fascinated with in-game glitches, and my interest in cheat codes and hacks grew off of that. I think hacking a game is an interesting way to kinda jazz it up and make it more interesting and easy/difficult. I've done some hacking in City Folk to get items that are programmed in the game that aren't obtainable by any means, but I haven't gone as far as to start planting trees in the river or completely changing the town layout.

I haven't hacked anything on my 3DS, but if I get a second copy of ACNL I might try it out with my old 3DS. It'd be interesting to see what I could do with my town in New Leaf

 

[Laureline]

I hacked once but quickly got too overwhelmed. I think that was because I hacked my town right from the start. Before I had any idea of what I wanted to do with my town. Part of me wants to try again

 

[Flare]

I've never tried hacking but it looks like it could lead to entertaining shenanigans to occur.

 

[ccee633]

I htink it's just fine! Play how you want! Want to hack and put weeds in the water? Sure! Want to re arrange the layout of the town? Sure! Add another town tree? Neato! Customize a villager? That's dope! Want to not hack at all? That's okay too. We're all different.

Honestly I have hacked slightly myself, my lil machine thingy I used is broken now, but I just used it for some gold tools and a bajillion MEOW coupons so I could change most of them into bells. Anyway, always sorta wished it was easier/simpler do the thing where you edit the town layout and such.

 

[lakeside]

I don't have a problem with other people hacking, but it's something I won't ever do because I know I'll ruin the game for myself. I have more fun working around awkwardly-placed rocks and houses, and putting effort into getting items and money. Though, I did visit a hacked Dream Town yesterday and it was beautiful.

 

[JackABee]

I think that hacking is fine as long as it doesn't ruin other people's experience. Software that allows you to spawn in any item in the game isn't as fun as earning items legitimately. Hacks that change the town's status and stuff (an editor basically) I think is fine to change the town name, amount of bells (they're basically worthless), and your own appearance (probably should have been a feature in the first place).

 

[Lippysue]

I have enjoyed looking at hacked towns in the Dream Suit just because they were different at first. But I have never seen anything in a hacked town that I would want badly enough to hack my town for as I believe it can be risky.

Maybe it's because I don't stress about getting rare items. If other people want to hack then it's up to them. Their game, their decisions.

 

[moonlightxo]

I don't hack, cause I think it's too risky. But if it wasn't, I wouldn't hack either tbh, because I think the game has no goals anymore, if that makes sense.

 

[Arjh]

I personally don't like it and prefer to visit non hacked towns via the dream suite. I've searched for dream addresses to visit and most of the hacked ones all looked the same with weeds in ponds or clovers on the default grey areas (like town plaza, around town hall etc) which I personally don't like the look off.
If others want to hack I've no problem but I won't be.

 

[sigh]

i think hacking the game is okay if it's not done with bad intentions ( isn't used to ruin anyone else's game play ) and have no problem with it. i've seen some stunning hacked town tours on youtube and visited others through the dream suite, and i wish i could create something like them. it's super cool to see what can be done, and it sounds awesome to be able to change your town name, mayor, map and whatever else at will.

i've been comenting on this thread a lot but....

i dont believe that the purpose of acnl is to work for everything. i think the purpose is to enjoy a small life as a mayor and control the town. if people want to advance faster and get advantages easier, they can hack and do so. but i don't believe that the purpose of the game is to work for a great town, even though that may be a goal along the way.

i completely agree. ^ it kind of bothers me when people assume that animal crossing should be played a specific way because it follows real time. ( as well as when people consider Time Traveling, a feature implemented in the game by the creators that doesn't require an external device or program, cheating. if anything it's an option. like, they even made it a villager rumor ) nintendo didn't release an Animal Crossing Rule Book: You Can Only Play The Game Like This. personally, i don't believe there's supposed to be a certain way to play it.

anyway think about it like this; there are two travelers, and two different paths, one's shorter than the other, but they both lead to the same place. one traveler will prefer the shortcut - maybe because they're impatient or busy, and there's nothing wrong with that. the other traveler will prefer the longer route because they like to take their time, and, again, there's nothing wrong with that. either way it's not a race, there's no competition to begin with, and the two travelers won't cross paths along the way and will both eventually find themselves at their destination. moral of the story? play the game how you want and let people play the game how they want. it shouldn't affect you. if you like taking your time and working for everything on your own, do it that way. or if you like hacking to achieve the town, villagers and items you want, go for it - just don't mess with anyone else's game.

i've met hackers who are so so kind, very helpful and generous, and they don't deserve any hate and disapproval that hacking usually comes with. and on the other hand i've read about the horror stories that have happened on CT due to the bad hackers - but i wouldn't say it's the hacking that's bad, it's specifically those people and what they've chosen to do with their hacking.

tldr: i approve