Corruption Rant

[LinDUNguin]

I'm creating this thread because of how often it seems people are getting their towns corrupted, and I just feel like it's someyhing that shouldn't be happening. I already posted this in response to a thread about someone's town getting corrupted, so I just copy-pasted since I didn't really want to reformat it, being on my phone and all :/

Honestly, the entire notion of a single save corrupting causing you to lose your entire game is ridiculous, especially since it seems to happen so often. Only other time I've experienced corruption of a save is when I was playing a heavily-modded Oblivion and screwing around with the load order too much caused me to corrupt a SINGLE save. But the system implemented allowed me to go back to a previous save state and only lose a nominal amount of data. Why can't Animal Crossing have that? Or all Nintendo games for that matter, since they always over-write a single save so if something happens to it you're done, period.

I understand with Animal Crossing the idea is to move on one day to the next so having multiple save states you could go back to would be problematic, but what if you were forced to load the most recent one on startup? Then if something got corrupt you'd still have your town data "backed up" so to speak and you'd only lose the amount of time since the 2nd to last time you played. It would just register as you having not played in that time span.

Someone should create a petition. As much as I love Nintendo's original games and creative IPs, they lack dev support. They never patch their games (even though they have the ability to) and basically what you get out of the box is what you have for the entirety of your playtime with it, bugs and all.

 

[Krissi2197]

The majority of the corruptions that have been happening lately are the user's faults, though. If you quit while saving/loading the town, pop out your SD card before turning the system off, mess with the data in the SD card on the computer, etc, it's not Nintendo's fault if the game corrupts.

I agree with the "back-up" thing, and I'm surprised Nintendo hasn't done that yet and I wish they had, but corruption can easily be avoided by taking a few precautions. People who are careless and get their data corrupted is all on them, even if it was an accident.

 

[Yui Z]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Only human. Humans make mistakes.

But yeah, most of the time it's the users own fault or human error. Just be careful and it should be possible to avoid.

 

[Waluigi]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Only human. Humans make mistakes.

But yeah, most of the time it's the users own fault or human error. Just be careful and it should be possible to avoid.

This. Just, this.

 

[LinDUNguin]

I fully agree that it's pretty easy to avoid corruption if you're careful (I haven't experienced corruption in AC once, even though I think I made it seem though I have) but the thing is human error's a pretty big thing. We've all seen it happen with all of the corruptions that occur on this board. It shouldn't be so simple as powering down early or accidentally popping out the cartridge mid-game. It's actually pretty specific to AC too; I've quit out of pokemon mid-save and popped out the cartridge mid-game when I was younger and I experienced no problems whatsoever.

 

[Krissi2197]

I fully agree that it's pretty easy to avoid corruption if you're careful (I haven't experienced corruption in AC once, even though I think I made it seem though I have) but the thing is human error's a pretty big thing. We've all seen it happen with all of the corruptions that occur on this board. It shouldn't be so simple as powering down early or accidentally popping out the cartridge mid-game. It's actually pretty specific to AC too; I've quit out of pokemon mid-save and popped out the cartridge mid-game when I was younger and I experienced no problems whatsoever.

My sister dropped her DS mid-save in Pokemon Y, and her game corrupted because the game card popped out. It's not just with AC... I think the problem is, that AC saves SO MUCH. It saves the entire town the way you left it. If you turn the game off mid-save, it is torn between the old town before you saved or the new town after you saved, which probably confuses it and causes corruption.

 

[captainofcool]

Really, avoiding corruption is easy. Most of the time it's through careless actions. However, implanting a save data backup thingie would be really nice. I'm not sure how it'd work, because a player could easily duplicate stuff by corrupting one file and going back to an old one.

 

[LinDUNguin]

And it took me HEAVILY modding my Oblivion save to corrupt it; it just seems way to easy to corrupt your save in NL.

 

[Krissi2197]

I'm not sure how it'd work, because a player could easily duplicate stuff by corrupting one file and going back to an old one.

I'm certain this was the reason that Nintendo doesn't allow back-up files.

 

[EmmaFrost]

I bought Datel Powersaves 3DS to avoid the chance of my save file ever corrupting without the chance of being recovered. It's a USB device where you plug in your 3DS cartridge to your computer and it'll save your save file for any 3DS game to your computer. That way if my data ever did corrupt I could just load the previously saved file and everything would be okay. This is good for favorite villagers unexpectedly moving out, too. It's a good $18.99 to spend on Amazon.

 

[Gizmodo]

I bought Datel Powersaves 3DS to avoid the chance of my save file ever corrupting without the chance of being recovered. It's a USB device where you plug in your 3DS cartridge to your computer and it'll save your save file for any 3DS game to your computer. That way if my data ever did corrupt I could just load the previously saved file and everything would be okay. This is good for favorite villagers unexpectedly moving out, too. It's a good $18.99 to spend on Amazon.

Does this work for a physical cartridge then?
I'm still so scared to ever get a digital game

 

[LinDUNguin]

I'm certain this was the reason that Nintendo doesn't allow back-up files.

How would that work? If the town datas are separate then there's no way to duplicate anything.

 

[Krissi2197]

I bought Datel Powersaves 3DS to avoid the chance of my save file ever corrupting without the chance of being recovered. It's a USB device where you plug in your 3DS cartridge to your computer and it'll save your save file for any 3DS game to your computer. That way if my data ever did corrupt I could just load the previously saved file and everything would be okay. This is good for favorite villagers unexpectedly moving out, too. It's a good $18.99 to spend on Amazon.

I don't think this works with ACNL... Each time you save, a new code is generated. A "save code" if you want to call it that. If the "save code" doesn't match up with the "save code" when you open the game, it won't work.

 

[EmmaFrost]

Does this work for a physical cartridge then?
I'm still so scared to ever get a digital game

Yes, it works only with physical cartridges because you plug them into the USB dongle directly into your computer.
I have two copies of Animal Crossing and I back up my saves for both games on my Powersaves 3DS.

- - - Post Merge - - -

I don't think this works with ACNL... Each time you save, a new code is generated. A "save code" if you want to call it that. If the "save code" doesn't match up with the "save code" when you open the game, it won't work.

I've tested it.

 

[captainofcool]

Item is in data file one. Data file two gets created with the item in it, but becomes corrupted. Data file one is pulled out with the item still in it, creating two of the same item (assuming that the the item was given to another player). Something like that.

 

[Fantasyland]

Nobody's mentioned this, so I thought I would jump in: Just copy files from the SD card into a folder on your computer. This way if anything corrupts, you just copy it back from your computer onto your SD card. I know some people who have corrupted and used this method, and they've been fine.
I've saved off my SD card many times, and it's never given me any issues. I try to do it once a week, or more if I have villagers I like moving in.
I have never seen a single thread on this forum that hasn't been the fault of the user. Even cartridges popping out- you dropped your 3DS???? That's terrifying to me! People who don't take care of their electronics like that should expect to have issues.

 

[Kildor]

If my town got corrupted ,I won't ever post that I corrupted my game ever. Because I do not want people to pity me. And it would make me look like im just there getting donations.Its my fault and I should face it. Make a new town,start over. I know it will be hard,but thats what ACNL is about. Starting over a new leaf. And ai am sorry. I know people make mistakes,but simple precautions could have made to prevent it. Also,an elder scrolls player?! We should go Multiplayer in my town sometime Oblivion lagged for me because of all of the bug fix mods and graphical improvements. Zooming into peoples faces during conversation freaked me out.

 

[LinDUNguin]

Item is in data file one. Data file two gets created with the item in it, but becomes corrupted. Data file one is pulled out with the item still in it, creating two of the same item (assuming that the the item was given to another player). Something like that.

Ok, but the item in data file two is lost. The data is specific to each save.

- - - Post Merge - - -

If my town got corrupted ,I won't ever post that I corrupted my game ever. Because I do not want people to pity me. And it would make me look like im just there getting donations.Its my fault and I should face it. Make a new town,start over. I know it will be hard,but thats what ACNL is about. Starting over a new leaf. And ai am sorry. I know people make mistakes,but simple precautions could have made to prevent it. Also,an elder scrolls player?! We should go Multiplayer in my town sometime Oblivion lagged for me because of all of the bug fix mods and graphical improvements. Zooming into peoples faces during conversation freaked me out.

Lol, that does sound freaky. I'd be glad to visit your town sometime

 

[vodkasmizmar]

Nobody's mentioned this, so I thought I would jump in: Just copy files from the SD card into a folder on your computer. This way if anything corrupts, you just copy it back from your computer onto your SD card. I know some people who have corrupted and used this method, and they've been fine.
I've saved off my SD card many times, and it's never given me any issues. I try to do it once a week, or more if I have villagers I like moving in.
I have never seen a single thread on this forum that hasn't been the fault of the user. Even cartridges popping out- you dropped your 3DS???? That's terrifying to me! People who don't take care of their electronics like that should expect to have issues.

I don't know if the SD actually holds much ACNL data. I've turned on my DS and played ACNL while my SD card was out and played perfectly fine - the only difference I noticed was that it said it was unable to do Streetpass. I agree with the rest though - if you're dropping your $200 electronic device or "playing" with the cartridge area while it's saving - maybe a ball would be a better toy.

 

[Krissi2197]

I don't know if the SD actually holds much ACNL data. I've turned on my DS and played ACNL while my SD card was out and played perfectly fine - the only difference I noticed was that it said it was unable to do Streetpass. I agree with the rest though - if you're dropping your $200 electronic device or "playing" with the cartridge area while it's saving - maybe a ball would be a better toy.

You need to take into consideration that digital copies DO exist.