empressbethie
Senior Member
So I was thinking of what they might use the dock for in later updates, same as the secret beach turned out to be for Redd’s boat. Obvious answer is of course Kapp’n, which got me thinking some more…
Picture the scene: you power up your game on the one year anniversary of the game coming out/ you starting your island. Isabelle does her usual, telling you all about her tv habits, then does a little shock reaction and says she’s remembered that today is the anniversary of the Deserted Island Getaway Package, does a little flower react, and then tells you that Tom Nook would like to see you in the Plaza to celebrate your achievements. You wander over to Tom Nook, who maybe gives you a party popper to celebrate. Then he hits you with the real news: he thinks it’s time to expand. He’s inspected some neighbouring islands and decided that they’re ready for habitation. He’s been in touch with his old pal Kapp’n, who’s going to make use of the dock already on your island (my plan all along to expand, ambition is an admirable quality, yes yes) to transport you to nearby islands. He’s sad to say, however, that they need funds to make this possible, and that the current owners of the islands will only accept payment in [insert your currency here]. He then prompts you to visit the eShop and thus New Horizons DLC is born.
You purchase the DLC, then return to your game. Tom Nook is very happy. He asks you to go over a few details with him. He tells you that he’s been in touch with a few of his old friends who would like to join the Getaway Package as ‘Island Leaders’. He also has a selection of islands available, but you can only choose one for now, and his friends have their preferences. Depending on who you choose and which island you like the look of, you get a set of completely different features on your brand new island.
So, say you pick Tortimer, who pitches a fun island retreat. You get to pick from a few islands with different layouts. You arrive there on Kapp’n’s boat and it’s summer, no matter what season your main island is in. Right away, you see bananas and durians and other exotic fruits. The island has much bigger beaches than your first. Tom Nook asks you to pick a space to build this island’s plaza ready for the arrival of Tortimer. When you meet Tortimer, he’s full of exciting plans. You get to build an island resort, run by Kapp’n’s family, where random villagers show up for a holiday and you get to invite them to live here, working as an expanded version of the campsite. It’s also the base for MINI GAMES. Then one day a villager shows up who you don’t recognise and you realise that your island has come with new villagers or species or hobbies.
I think this would be a really fun way of introducing new features, buildings, NPCs and villagers, as well as returning ones. We really didn’t get a big villager expansion in NH, so some new villagers would be a pleasant addition, maybe leading to some new amiibo cards! Some features could be locked behind the DLC paywall, while others come as free updates. I imagine the new buildings and villager plots being more expensive than they were at the start of the game. I know a lot of people (not me lol) have more bells than they know what to do with. I’d also love this as an opportunity to expand the number of villagers we can have, allowing more plots to be built, with numbers depending on the size and theme of the island. Villagers could maybe wander between islands, for example jocks might want to spend a lot of time in Tortimer’s island because of the extreme training conditions and mini games!
One of my favourite island ideas I’ve thought of is a nocturnal island, where Celeste could set up a new branch of the museum dedicated to SPACE. You could donate items you’ve crafted with the recipes Celeste has given you, setting up a room about space exploration and another about the Zodiac. And of course, Celeste would get her observatory back, with the opportunity for custom constellations. I’d love them to extend Celeste’s role like this, maybe with the introduction of a planetarium, so you could collect new types of planetary fragments(?) to build up that display. With how beautiful the main museum is, I really want to see some expansions to that. And with this nocturnal island, we could get new uchis and crankies, who seem to like being up late, as well as new nocturnal species, maybe owlets and (dare I say it) BATS.
More islands themed around unique environments could also be really interesting. Say, an island that’s always wintry with new penguins, rabbits as arctic hares, bears and cubs as polar bears, wolves as arctic wolves, seals for something new, etc. Imagine all the Arendelles and Ahtohallans, I know I’d love to see it! I’d also love to see an island with a big expansion of flora and fauna, introducing new bushes, trees, flowers, crops, bugs, fish. I can see normals and lazies really enjoying that sort of environment and players making some beautiful farmyards with big use of the cottagecore aesthetic. Maybe Nat and Chip could come back to run another museum for these new critters, bringing them back in a less energetic way for their retirement! For new species, I think piglets would be absolutely adorable. Imagine a little jock piglet or a sweet little normal pink piglet, or maybe I just want a Winnie the Pooh style island, my bad.
I think a sort of city island, with Digby or someone else from the HHA crew running it, would be a really great mechanic for bringing back a lot of the public buildings we’ve missed from Main Street, HHD, City Folk city, but without forcing us to bulldoze parts of our main islands. I could see it also coming with a few new ways to decorate, for example new standard paths or more ways to customise public buildings, like how you could pick options for the town hall and train station in New Leaf. I’d love to build a little restaurant for Franklin and take him fun ingredients to feed my islander friends.
So I’m probably using my imagination a bit too much here and I have too much time on my hands (thanks lockdown), but with such a huge install base for ACNH, DLC has the potential to be ridiculously lucrative for Nintendo. This game has also been great value for so many of us putting in hundreds of hours, so I’m guessing a lot of us would be happy to pay for something new! The idea of more than one island would also tap into a lot of the trends we’ve seen with how people are using this game, eg. resetting and hardcore themes. Doubt we’ll see it and imagine it would cause even more issues with lag, but it’s been fun to think about whenever my crankies start talking about exploring new islands and I’d love to get other people’s opinions on what sort of DLC they think we might get!
Picture the scene: you power up your game on the one year anniversary of the game coming out/ you starting your island. Isabelle does her usual, telling you all about her tv habits, then does a little shock reaction and says she’s remembered that today is the anniversary of the Deserted Island Getaway Package, does a little flower react, and then tells you that Tom Nook would like to see you in the Plaza to celebrate your achievements. You wander over to Tom Nook, who maybe gives you a party popper to celebrate. Then he hits you with the real news: he thinks it’s time to expand. He’s inspected some neighbouring islands and decided that they’re ready for habitation. He’s been in touch with his old pal Kapp’n, who’s going to make use of the dock already on your island (my plan all along to expand, ambition is an admirable quality, yes yes) to transport you to nearby islands. He’s sad to say, however, that they need funds to make this possible, and that the current owners of the islands will only accept payment in [insert your currency here]. He then prompts you to visit the eShop and thus New Horizons DLC is born.
You purchase the DLC, then return to your game. Tom Nook is very happy. He asks you to go over a few details with him. He tells you that he’s been in touch with a few of his old friends who would like to join the Getaway Package as ‘Island Leaders’. He also has a selection of islands available, but you can only choose one for now, and his friends have their preferences. Depending on who you choose and which island you like the look of, you get a set of completely different features on your brand new island.
So, say you pick Tortimer, who pitches a fun island retreat. You get to pick from a few islands with different layouts. You arrive there on Kapp’n’s boat and it’s summer, no matter what season your main island is in. Right away, you see bananas and durians and other exotic fruits. The island has much bigger beaches than your first. Tom Nook asks you to pick a space to build this island’s plaza ready for the arrival of Tortimer. When you meet Tortimer, he’s full of exciting plans. You get to build an island resort, run by Kapp’n’s family, where random villagers show up for a holiday and you get to invite them to live here, working as an expanded version of the campsite. It’s also the base for MINI GAMES. Then one day a villager shows up who you don’t recognise and you realise that your island has come with new villagers or species or hobbies.
I think this would be a really fun way of introducing new features, buildings, NPCs and villagers, as well as returning ones. We really didn’t get a big villager expansion in NH, so some new villagers would be a pleasant addition, maybe leading to some new amiibo cards! Some features could be locked behind the DLC paywall, while others come as free updates. I imagine the new buildings and villager plots being more expensive than they were at the start of the game. I know a lot of people (not me lol) have more bells than they know what to do with. I’d also love this as an opportunity to expand the number of villagers we can have, allowing more plots to be built, with numbers depending on the size and theme of the island. Villagers could maybe wander between islands, for example jocks might want to spend a lot of time in Tortimer’s island because of the extreme training conditions and mini games!
One of my favourite island ideas I’ve thought of is a nocturnal island, where Celeste could set up a new branch of the museum dedicated to SPACE. You could donate items you’ve crafted with the recipes Celeste has given you, setting up a room about space exploration and another about the Zodiac. And of course, Celeste would get her observatory back, with the opportunity for custom constellations. I’d love them to extend Celeste’s role like this, maybe with the introduction of a planetarium, so you could collect new types of planetary fragments(?) to build up that display. With how beautiful the main museum is, I really want to see some expansions to that. And with this nocturnal island, we could get new uchis and crankies, who seem to like being up late, as well as new nocturnal species, maybe owlets and (dare I say it) BATS.
More islands themed around unique environments could also be really interesting. Say, an island that’s always wintry with new penguins, rabbits as arctic hares, bears and cubs as polar bears, wolves as arctic wolves, seals for something new, etc. Imagine all the Arendelles and Ahtohallans, I know I’d love to see it! I’d also love to see an island with a big expansion of flora and fauna, introducing new bushes, trees, flowers, crops, bugs, fish. I can see normals and lazies really enjoying that sort of environment and players making some beautiful farmyards with big use of the cottagecore aesthetic. Maybe Nat and Chip could come back to run another museum for these new critters, bringing them back in a less energetic way for their retirement! For new species, I think piglets would be absolutely adorable. Imagine a little jock piglet or a sweet little normal pink piglet, or maybe I just want a Winnie the Pooh style island, my bad.
I think a sort of city island, with Digby or someone else from the HHA crew running it, would be a really great mechanic for bringing back a lot of the public buildings we’ve missed from Main Street, HHD, City Folk city, but without forcing us to bulldoze parts of our main islands. I could see it also coming with a few new ways to decorate, for example new standard paths or more ways to customise public buildings, like how you could pick options for the town hall and train station in New Leaf. I’d love to build a little restaurant for Franklin and take him fun ingredients to feed my islander friends.
So I’m probably using my imagination a bit too much here and I have too much time on my hands (thanks lockdown), but with such a huge install base for ACNH, DLC has the potential to be ridiculously lucrative for Nintendo. This game has also been great value for so many of us putting in hundreds of hours, so I’m guessing a lot of us would be happy to pay for something new! The idea of more than one island would also tap into a lot of the trends we’ve seen with how people are using this game, eg. resetting and hardcore themes. Doubt we’ll see it and imagine it would cause even more issues with lag, but it’s been fun to think about whenever my crankies start talking about exploring new islands and I’d love to get other people’s opinions on what sort of DLC they think we might get!
