There you are; completely refurbishing your Rococo set, watering hybrids to your heart's content, snagging up your final Dream Villager via Giveaway threads, achieving the seemingly-impossible complete catalog (though DLCs would come and go), and collecting every fish, insect, fossil?heck, even artworks for your museum!
Do you consider the game "finished"? Would you still play it frequently? What will you do?
It's always about chasing the carrot on the stick. No one knows what will happen once you catch it, because no one ever will. In my opinion there is always going to be something to acquire.
I never really think of an Animal Crossing town as "finished". There's always something to do. Get pictures, get new dreamies, things like that. I also would like to think that I could try and get a very beautiful town..
Meh, that's just me. Otherwise I'd start from scratch.
I finished my Wild World town. Perfect condition, completed my museum, had one of every unorderable and picture in storage. That's how you complete an Animal Crossing game. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to do for New Leaf, just based on the sheer amount of stuff.
Sometimes I don't understand why we all want to complete a game that isn't supposed to be completed. I always thought Animal Crossing was about immersing yourself in a town where you can relax and do what you want to do. I thought AC:GC did exactly that. Don't get me wrong, I love ACNL to death, but I guess things are different. I find myself wanting to complete things as well, and for me its overwhelming. Okay I'm done ranting.
If I "beat" the game ie. do everything I want to do, I would certainly stop playing.
However, I have way too many things to do before I could consider the game completed, such that I would never stop playing due to "beating" the game; I would much sooner stop playing due to the release of the next generation animal crossing.
Some of my personal win conditions include acquiring the pictures of all my dreamies, fully furnishing all 4 characters' houses with a different theme in each room, having every PWP I want exactly where I want it. There is way more
For me, the game has no finish line. And I have no "dream town" goal to achieve. The only thing I hope to do is to meet every single villager in the game, have every single one of them pass through Zingzang (by moving in and out or by stopping to buy a coffee or by staying in the campsite). I'm actually keeping a list. Heh. But that will probably take many, many years and I'm likely to shuffle off this mortal coil before it happens. So, yeah, I just play the game because I enjoy walking around my town, interacting with the villagers, watering my flowers, viewing the PWPs. I like all that. I don't feel I need to compete or complete. (I won't even expand my mayor's house to the fullest because I like some rooms to remain small.) Dream town? Naah. It's my town, it's a town I love, and that's it, that's all it takes for me to enjoy playing and to keep playing.
I still have bugs, fish, diving to do. I can do more favors with my villagers. Experience events with them, etc,etc. I admit, I might not play as often, though.
The game isn't just finished in my opinion. It's still fun to play after you've done everything you wanted to do to your town. Talk to villagers, explore dream towns, just walk around your town, hang out with friends or strangers on the island, etc.
Harvest Moon got boring a whole lot faster than AC did for me. The daily chores made it a slog to get through at times. I still haven't finished the last restoration plan, because I got really bored. However, I've played NL for about 2 months straight now, with no sign of getting bored anytime soon. I'd rather AC not be like Harvest Moon.
Anyway, I have 2 main goals - trying to collect as many of the items as I can, and trying to set up my house and town creatively. I want to fill the museum and get as many badges as I can too, but I kinda consider that as part of the collecting items goal. I'll work on those two goals until I get bored. That's pretty much it. Sure, there's dream villagers I'd like to have, but that's not a goal of mine at all. I don't TT right now and I am not willing to pay millions of bells for a villager. I'll just have the ones I have and have that be that.
I don't think you can finish. There is always something to do regardless if you've completed your museum or catalog. I do have a dream town goal and it will take many months to complete, but even after I've made my town perfect it's still not the end for me.
I guess if I do feel my town is "finished" then I will still play, just to talk to my villagers, water plants etc.
It's more likely for me to drop the game before I ever reach 'perfection' in my town, haha.
I feel like I play at a relatively slower pace than most other people, so I still have ways to go until my town reaches a status where I'm completely satisfied with it. If I ever do reach that seemingly far-off goal, I hope I will have thought of something else to do by then.
It'll take so long for me to get my perfect town or perfect house that by the time I get there I'll have changed my mind about what's "perfect". I don't Time Travel cos I want to experience the game the way I think it's best to experience it: slowly. I'm not interested in being the first to get a full set of Princess furniture or whatever, there's more value to me in going shopping every day to see what's new and maybe trading every once in while (usually with hubby). Mine is an ever-evolving town with no "perfection" to be sought - just enjoying it every day.
