I prefer non-hacked towns. I have gone to quite a few hacked dream towns, and I've noticed that they tend to be really cluttered. I prefer to have a good amount of open space, so having so much clutter can be kind of disorienting. That being said, I've seen some pretty good hacked towns. I especially like when palm trees are used in an area that isn't the beach. Gives a nice tropical feeling.
i like the idea of a natural town, without any hacking. you feel more accomplished at your hard work when your town is finally starting to come together. but like Duu said, you can set your own limits for yourself, so even though you may have the ability to hack, it feels natural because you're still doing all the hard work in-game
in terms of maps, i prefer hacked maps. some people can get very creative and it's interesting to see all the different ideas people can come up with
I honestly like both! To me hacked towns are kind of like, eye candy towns? Like Duu said above you can set your own limits and then there are people who just hack to get the town a certain way they want (I personally really love it when people make river docks or things in the water, it makes me wish it was a base game thing!). If you're also just trying to get an idea down and don't want to go through the trouble of going through everything I have no issue with it, it gives me another pretty town to check out.
And for non-hacked towns I feel like there is a sense of pride that goes into not editing the game to try to get things the way you want it I think it's amazing, all natural towns are definitely interesting because there's something nice about going through it knowing the person put a lot of time into the town to get it perfect.
I like both and I don't really care what people did to make it the way they wanted as long as they were able to get it to where they wanted it
I've only seen a few hacked towns that I know of. I only tend to notice the obvious hacked ones, like maybe they have more than 3 bridges or there's a lot of shenanigans going on.
If there were towns that were hacked so PWPs could be aligned a certain way or plants put where they couldn't normally be, I'm not sure if I'd notice as much.
If I'm just in the mood to check out a beautiful town, then I don't care whether it's hacked or non-hacked. I've seen gorgeous towns that were both hacked and non-hacked and I don't have a preference as long as it's done well. Hacked towns can do some interesting things, like putting Katrina's tent in the middle of a jungle, or making a desert town with palm trees around the ponds to create a small oasis. But non-hacked towns can be just as creative, albeit within the limits of the game. I enjoy seeing what people do with both types of towns and how they make their towns unique.
However, if I'm specifically looking for inspiration for my own town, then I only want to see non-hacked towns. I don't hack, so I can't do all of the things that hackers can. It doesn't help me to see something and then later learn that I can't do anything close to that. I remember seeing a hacked town early on that had some bamboo growing in the river. It was tastefully done, just flanking each side of the bridges. I thought it looked so pretty and I spent hours and hours online trying to figure out how to plant bamboo in the river. I felt like I wasted so much time just to find out that the only way to get that look was to hack. So while, I don't mind hacked towns, it's nice to know in advance if a town is hacked or not so that I'm not wasting time or disappointed later when I realize that what I saw isn't possible through normal means.
Of course, now I know what a hacked town looks like and what the limitations of the game are, but when I first started playing I had no idea.
Hacked towns are great for getting inspiration, and giving you more ideas. On the other hand, I personally won't be hacking my game, so it can make it hard to use their ideas if they are breaking the game's boundaries. Seeing beautiful non-hacked town gives me a burst of inspiration and energy to keep making my town as best as it can be. There's also a better feeling of accomplishment, as you worked hard on making an amazing town. Anyways, I'm fine with seeing bost, but I do lean a bit more toward non-hacked towns, as it fits my playstile better
I really haven't seen that many great looking hacked towns.Most of them just have stuff in the water and on the beach and don't use hacking very creatively.I have seen many non-hacked towns that look fantastic and obviously took much time and effort to put together.Perhaps hacking gives a player too many options and creativity is stifled whereas in a non-hacked town working within the set parameters of the game forces the player to come up with more creative solutions.
Honestly asking about hacked vs non-hacked is much like asking about time-travel vs non-time-travel towns. There are good reasons on both sides.
Non-hacked towns arguably do take more time, especially in terms of a non-time travel town. Getting the perfect hedge can take nearly two weeks if you don't know how to place bushes well enough. Not to mention that in non-hacked towns, if you decide you wanna change anything significant when you're deep into progress, you're pretty stuffed. In terms of investment into actually putting stuff together then non-hacked towns win. There's nothing more satifying than a visit to a non-hacked dream address that the creator has tweaked to perfection.
But hacked towns have their own charm too. Some people use hacking to be creative and go outside the normal bounds of ACNL and hacked towns can be interesting and unique. Tired of paths lined with hedges? Hacked towns can give you an avenue of trees that would never grow like that normally. Stuff like that. Plus some people don't have means of hacking normally. If I wanted to hack my down I would need to go buy a piece of hardware, so money investment can be higher for these towns. Learning to hack would be difficult as well. Placing bushes in no longer as simple as choosing 'plant'. Plus hacking can be a dangerous business. If you don't have like a hundred back-ups doing the tiniest thing could ruin your save file and set you back quite a lot, so hackers are generally quite gutsy.
As I said, there really is a great satifisation of walking through a town thinking how long it took someone to make their town up the way it was, but in no way do I consider non-hacked towns 'superior'. Everyone has their own style of playing the game and everyone loves their own town, regardless of if you approve of the way it was made or not.
