Hacking the Game

[steele]

So I only recently understood what people meant by "hacking" the game. I thought it was like cheat codes or something. But the creepy youtube algorithm basically led me to a video the other day that showed the hacking. I saw that you basically hack the SD card and overwrite your own save file on it.

At first I was really offended by this method. Like, I feel like it would genuinely ruin the game to be able to change your map, town, villagers, and etc without really trying.

But I also remembered I've been using this forum to quickly obtain furniture and stuff for my house and that could be seen as "hacking" or in a way accelerating the game from the usual. Some of the items I bought were unable to be gotten through a catalouge and should have been "earned".

Still, I don't feel bad for using TBT. I was even tempted to hack my ACNL but the thought of messing something up was unbearable. I can see the strong allure of quickly moving things around and setting up the perfect town. But I think you lose so much of what makes ACNL great when you do that.

Have you ever thought about hacking your game?
Hacking a second game card for fun?
Do you have strong morals against hacking it?​

To give some background on why this is also sort of relevant to me-- I recently started playing again after about a 2 year absence due to school and job and such. The save file I am actually using is from my sister and I don't like the town name or mayor, but I don't want to change everything. I feel like I have made genuine progress on the game I don't want to lose. I have been thinking more and more and more about getting a second card though so I could really build my dream town. I just haven't. When I saw the video on hacking it was disturbing but I also got lost in the thoughts about how perfect I could make my second town by arranging things perfectly and etc.

I was just hoping to open up a discussion here about what you think regarding hacking. Are you against it? Do you care if other people do it as long as they don't bother you?

 

[kiwi-strawberry]

i'm all for hacking as long as it doesn't affect me in any way. i wouldn't do it myself, though. to be honest some of the hackers on club tortimer make me really nervous, i've seen them literally fly around the island (yes, in the air). but as long as they don't take my stuff of trap me or anything i'm fine with them, but i do sometimes leave if i feel uneasy/threatened

 

[RedTropicalPeachyFish]

First off, there's this thread fyi. A little old thread though.-> click <-

I personally see it stupid. It's like, wanting a jigsaw puzzle that's done. lol
What I wonder is, so, despite people in the States look very respectful of rights and such about artwork of artists, yet why don't they care about that the game is the result of work that the staff of Nentendo put efforts in??? *shrugs*

Even aside from that. Since I've been in this forum since the release of the game, I witnessed all the actual process how the economy of this forum was broken. If you're interested I'd be willing to tell you the detail with user names through PMs haha. This is essentially the community for Animal Crossing, right? Yet, for an instance, when you sell the rare non-orderable item then you get just 2 or 3 forum bells. So, if you're gonna buy collectibles that's another fun feature of the forum, you need to sell TONS. 'Cause while selling in game item give you little forum bells, collectibles cost way higher. This is just an instance, btw. I'm not a big fan of collectibles and such personally. What I'm trying to say is, it's ODD, though this is AC forum, you need so much efforts to earn forum bells, unable to earn much by in game trading. It got this way all due to hacking. It used to be not this way before duping, powersaving, hacking and such weren't common. The economy was running more normally, now it's broken. That's the process I saw during these past 5 years in this forum.

Speaking of which, I happen to have the same issue as yours OP. My very first town was not my cartridge but my family's. Lame town name, unremovable PWPs in ANNOYING places, etc. I've put 4 years of efforts into this town, and I don't think I wanna hack this cartridge. My choice is simple. I'd reset and start over from scratch if I really can't deal with this annoyance. The efforts I'm going to have to put into it again is just exciting to me.

Wellllllll, I know I'd be seen like what the heck by saying these things straight up. But wanted to speak my honest opinion. Since it's discussion.

 

[RooftopsRevolution]

This thread genuinely made me cry. For the record, I have a legitimate town that I play on this forum and items I give away are legit and there are significantly more hackers in the Animal Crossing community than you know. On here, trading hacked items is not allowed and I follow that.

There's... a lot on animosity towards hackers that's super unhealthy. This thread genuinely makes me upset since I've tried for years to dispel the stigma around hacking. We are not here to ruin your game, so stop trying to ruin the way we play I'm not here to harm your game or hurt your file, I know what I'm doing and I'm not going to harm my own. I have interest in designing. If you want to earn your items, great! But it's not the way I want to play. We hack because we love Animal Crossing, not because we're out to hurt you. I finished my game and wanted something more to do. Not everyone has to play the same way that you do. Playing vanilla is fine, but I find it wares on me this is how I play. Hacking gives me a wider range of creativity to me and to others.
If you don't want to hack for your dream town, that's fine, but it's not 'easier' or 'the lazy way out' because it takes a lot of hours, time and effort. Hacking has existed all the way back to the N64 versions of Mori. It's not going away. It's worth getting to understand it instead. I promise it's not the easy way out. There's a lot of potential. You mentioned codes-- which are significantly more harmful. The codes for ACNL are the ability to seed and destroy towns THOSE are the ones that allow you to easily unlock items and stuff, not the save editor.

Animal Crossing is a game where everyone plays in different ways. The way the game files are structured allows for hacking to be open. The way the game is structured doesn't block hacking even though it could. Please don't fear monger. This is a genuine problem in the Animal Crossing community. There are thousands of us and we're not going away, so if you want to understand why we hack then by all means. I have learned more from hacking Animal Crossing than I have in any gamedev tutorial. Hacking takes a lot of time and effort, it's not a lazy way out and to assume that when you don't hack is really inaccurate.

The reason I hack is to be able to further express my creativity. It put so many hours and time in-game, and then I put more hours to fine tune. it doesn't affect any of you. I don't hack items or villagers. I use hacking enhance my town, not ruin my fun.

So to answer your question:
> I've hacked since I was 11-- for 12 years. I started with Wild World and have hacked every game since. I have custom villagers in one of my towns.
> Yes! I have three purchased games. It's a ton of fun and I set my own boundaries for my hacked town. It's a lot easier.
> Nope and no one should. If you don't want to hack, that's fine. You shouldn't chock it up to 'morals' though. We're not immoral for playing in a way that impacts no one else.

Yeah, don't be offended by how I play the game.

 

[LadyDestani]

Personally, I would never hack. I just don't trust it, don't know how to do it, and don't care to learn. It feels too risky to me. I've heard of people losing their towns or making their 3DS useless by not doing it properly.

But with that said, I don't have a problem with hackers or hacking as long as it's not ruining the game for others. I used to play a lot of MMORPGs and was often the target of malicious hackers who would steal my items, lock my account, or just hog maps or dungeons and make playing the game impossible. I've heard stories of people doing some malicious hacking along those lines in ACNL, specifically on the island. So I avoid the online island for that reason.

But if someone just hacks to make the game more enjoyable for themselves and doesn't harm anyone else, then I don't mind. Using hacks to change their name, change their town name, alter their map or place pwps and trees where they normally wouldn't go are fine by me. I've seen some really beautiful dream towns that were obviously hacked, but I still appreciated the effort and creativity those people put into their towns.

So that's my opinion. To each their own as long as it's not negatively impacting others.

 

[nanpan]

I've thought about hacking my game but then I also thought about how obsolete the game would become if I did that, I'd be done and I wouldn't get to enjoy playing the game anymore or feeling accomplished after unlocking my PWP's on my own. I spent a whole week unlocking all the uchi projects, just hours and hours waiting for villagers to unlock these projects and it was so tedious but when I unlocked the last one I felt SO happy. How can you get that feeling from just using a hack to unlock everything?

If other people want to do it then that's their choice. However, I think hacked towns are super tacky I guess? I don't visit hacked town dream addresses, they all look unnatural to me. Whereas going to non-hacked towns I'm like WOW, you can really see how much work people put into their town. Not to say that hacking doesn't require work put in but come on, who worked harder on their town, someone who didn't hack their town or someone who did?​

 

[AppleBitterCrumble]

This thread genuinely made me cry. For the record, I have a legitimate town that I play on this forum and items I give away are legit and there are significantly more hackers in the Animal Crossing community than you know. On here, trading hacked items is not allowed and I follow that.

There's... a lot on animosity towards hackers that's super unhealthy. This thread genuinely makes me upset since I've tried for years to dispel the stigma around hacking. We are not here to ruin your game, so stop trying to ruin the way we play I'm not here to harm your game or hurt your file, I know what I'm doing and I'm not going to harm my own. I have interest in designing. If you want to earn your items, great! But it's not the way I want to play. We hack because we love Animal Crossing, not because we're out to hurt you. I finished my game and wanted something more to do. Not everyone has to play the same way that you do. Playing vanilla is fine, but I find it wares on me this is how I play. Hacking gives me a wider range of creativity to me and to others.
If you don't want to hack for your dream town, that's fine, but it's not 'easier' or 'the lazy way out' because it takes a lot of hours, time and effort. Hacking has existed all the way back to the N64 versions of Mori. It's not going away. It's worth getting to understand it instead. I promise it's not the easy way out. There's a lot of potential. You mentioned codes-- which are significantly more harmful. The codes for ACNL are the ability to seed and destroy towns THOSE are the ones that allow you to easily unlock items and stuff, not the save editor.

Animal Crossing is a game where everyone plays in different ways. The way the game files are structured allows for hacking to be open. The way the game is structured doesn't block hacking even though it could. Please don't fear monger. This is a genuine problem in the Animal Crossing community. There are thousands of us and we're not going away, so if you want to understand why we hack then by all means. I have learned more from hacking Animal Crossing than I have in any gamedev tutorial. Hacking takes a lot of time and effort, it's not a lazy way out and to assume that when you don't hack is really inaccurate.

The reason I hack is to be able to further express my creativity. It put so many hours and time in-game, and then I put more hours to fine tune. it doesn't affect any of you. I don't hack items or villagers. I use hacking enhance my town, not ruin my fun.

So to answer your question:
> I've hacked since I was 11-- for 12 years. I started with Wild World and have hacked every game since. I have custom villagers in one of my towns.
> Yes! I have three purchased games. It's a ton of fun and I set my own boundaries for my hacked town. It's a lot easier.
> Nope and no one should. If you don't want to hack, that's fine. You shouldn't chock it up to 'morals' though. We're not immoral for playing in a way that impacts no one else.

Yeah, don't be offended by how I play the game.

I very much agree with this.

I briefly hacked a couple years ago but it wasn't to hurt anyone/corrupt anyone. It was more so that I can use spaces that weren't previously available to us to expand my creativity. Yeah sure ACNL is already pretty creative but what about putting neat PWPs in water or hybrids in water? Or making a barrier of trees so it looks uniform? As someone who is a perfectionist with these games I find it boring after a while if I don't get all the villagers I want or my landscaping looks to plain.

So for me it's just using more of what's there but wasn't accessible through normal game play.

However, I no longer hack and I plan not to once the new AC is released, I would at least like to enjoy the more traditional side of the game.

 

[MasterM64]

As someone who has been playing since 2013 with the same town legitimately, I completely agree with my dear friend Tropical on how I view hacking. In the context of TBT, I have seen what hacking has done to the economy. I was around in 2013/2014 and I remember how being a shop owner was actually worth it and now what used to be expensive is now only 20% of their original values at least. There is a reason why the collectible market on here is so much more lucrative because it hasn't experienced out of control inflation. There also is a reason why the exchange rate is so high for every TBT because a lot of people have hacked ridiculous amounts of bells alongside natural inflation that legit players cause which accelerated inflation to a unnatural level. I accidentally have done business with shops or participated giveaways on here in the past that were hacked and I disposed every item that I obtained through such transactions because it honestly didn't feel right once I knew the truth behind how they were sourcing the items... Anytime I discover that a shop is sourcing items through hacking, I always report them because I have seen how detrimental they are to the economy on here and other AC sites. One thing I want to add though is that certain items did not get devalued just by hacking, but also by the Welcome Amiibo update which made certain rare items much more obtainable (like the Kitchen Island and Treasure Chest). Another thing to consider is that certain items are being devalued because of the principles inflation, especially hybrids since people have been breeding hybrids for years now, but certain items should still not be as devalued as they are now (especially items that were only given away as DLC years ago and were unorderable).

The only thing I agree on the hacker side of the argument is seeing the game pushed to the limits through modded towns (some are wicked cool) and the discovery of unused items made by the developers at Nintendo for archive purposes, but even then I don't like how hacked dream towns seem to get all the attention on Youtube & the like instead of masterpiece/mind-blowing legitimate dream towns which took 10+ times longer to make and typically took a lot more patience & planning to produce... :/

Overall, I am against hacking and I think all hacking-related activities except for constructive/civil discussions like this thread should remain banned under the rules.

 

[steele]

!! LONG RESPONSE TO THREAD REPLIES !!

i'm all for hacking as long as it doesn't affect me in any way. i wouldn't do it myself, though. to be honest some of the hackers on club tortimer make me really nervous, i've seen them literally fly around the island (yes, in the air). but as long as they don't take my stuff of trap me or anything i'm fine with them, but i do sometimes leave if i feel uneasy/threatened

I totally agree. I don't go online using the island so I don't have that issue, I will probably avoid it going forward.

First off, there's this thread fyi. A little old thread though.-> click <-

I personally see it stupid. It's like, wanting a jigsaw puzzle that's done. lol
What I wonder is, so, despite people in the States look very respectful of rights and such about artwork of artists, yet why don't they care about that the game is the result of work that the staff of Nentendo put efforts in??? *shrugs*

Even aside from that. Since I've been in this forum since the release of the game, I witnessed all the actual process how the economy of this forum was broken. If you're interested I'd be willing to tell you the detail with user names through PMs haha. This is essentially the community for Animal Crossing, right? Yet, for an instance, when you sell the rare non-orderable item then you get just 2 or 3 forum bells. So, if you're gonna buy collectibles that's another fun feature of the forum, you need to sell TONS. 'Cause while selling in game item give you little forum bells, collectibles cost way higher. This is just an instance, btw. I'm not a big fan of collectibles and such personally. What I'm trying to say is, it's ODD, though this is AC forum, you need so much efforts to earn forum bells, unable to earn much by in game trading. It got this way all due to hacking. It used to be not this way before duping, powersaving, hacking and such weren't common. The economy was running more normally, now it's broken. That's the process I saw during these past 5 years in this forum.

Speaking of which, I happen to have the same issue as yours OP. My very first town was not my cartridge but my family's. Lame town name, unremovable PWPs in ANNOYING places, etc. I've put 4 years of efforts into this town, and I don't think I wanna hack this cartridge. My choice is simple. I'd reset and start over from scratch if I really can't deal with this annoyance. The efforts I'm going to have to put into it again is just exciting to me.

Wellllllll, I know I'd be seen like what the heck by saying these things straight up. But wanted to speak my honest opinion. Since it's discussion.

I appreciate the link to the old thread, I read a lot of interesting perspectives on there. I think that the largest downside for the hacking is the flooding of the market. I would say something sort of similar happened on Neopets (another site I used) and that really put a lot of people off of the website altogether. I definitely appreciate your candid and honest opinion on the topic. I am glad I am not the only person who doesn't want to reset over the same issue lol.

This thread genuinely made me cry. For the record, I have a legitimate town that I play on this forum and items I give away are legit and there are significantly more hackers in the Animal Crossing community than you know. On here, trading hacked items is not allowed and I follow that.

There's... a lot on animosity towards hackers that's super unhealthy. This thread genuinely makes me upset since I've tried for years to dispel the stigma around hacking. We are not here to ruin your game, so stop trying to ruin the way we play I'm not here to harm your game or hurt your file, I know what I'm doing and I'm not going to harm my own. I have interest in designing. If you want to earn your items, great! But it's not the way I want to play. We hack because we love Animal Crossing, not because we're out to hurt you. I finished my game and wanted something more to do. Not everyone has to play the same way that you do. Playing vanilla is fine, but I find it wares on me this is how I play. Hacking gives me a wider range of creativity to me and to others.
If you don't want to hack for your dream town, that's fine, but it's not 'easier' or 'the lazy way out' because it takes a lot of hours, time and effort. Hacking has existed all the way back to the N64 versions of Mori. It's not going away. It's worth getting to understand it instead. I promise it's not the easy way out. There's a lot of potential. You mentioned codes-- which are significantly more harmful. The codes for ACNL are the ability to seed and destroy towns THOSE are the ones that allow you to easily unlock items and stuff, not the save editor.

Animal Crossing is a game where everyone plays in different ways. The way the game files are structured allows for hacking to be open. The way the game is structured doesn't block hacking even though it could. Please don't fear monger. This is a genuine problem in the Animal Crossing community. There are thousands of us and we're not going away, so if you want to understand why we hack then by all means. I have learned more from hacking Animal Crossing than I have in any gamedev tutorial. Hacking takes a lot of time and effort, it's not a lazy way out and to assume that when you don't hack is really inaccurate.

The reason I hack is to be able to further express my creativity. It put so many hours and time in-game, and then I put more hours to fine tune. it doesn't affect any of you. I don't hack items or villagers. I use hacking enhance my town, not ruin my fun.

So to answer your question:
> I've hacked since I was 11-- for 12 years. I started with Wild World and have hacked every game since. I have custom villagers in one of my towns.
> Yes! I have three purchased games. It's a ton of fun and I set my own boundaries for my hacked town. It's a lot easier.
> Nope and no one should. If you don't want to hack, that's fine. You shouldn't chock it up to 'morals' though. We're not immoral for playing in a way that impacts no one else.

Yeah, don't be offended by how I play the game.

I think you took my post a little too personal or didn't read it all the way through. I mentioned that I had considered hacking as well. I am just nervous to ruin the game for myself or corrupt my own game card. I don't think that there is really anything wrong with doing it. I just wanted to know general opinions. I wasn't offended by how you play the game, only shocked because it is new to me.

I asked "Do you have strong morals against hacking it?" I never said that I had some morality against it. In fact, I was stating that I felt my use of TBT at all was a slippery slope into hacking. I think it's a gray area and wondered if some people were truly against the hacking. I didn't meant to offend you or make you or anyone else feel I was condemning it. This should be an objective discussion.

On a personal note, I have always been interested in coding, hacking, and general workarounds when it comes to computers and games. I loved to pick apart CSS and HTML when I was younger, just to see how things ticked. I was curious. At some point I would consider hacking an additional game of ACNL as well, but just like embarking on dissecting code I don't understand--I don't want to make any fatal errors. I was simply asking for opinions on this topic, not trying to harass, offend, or show any animosity towards hackers.

Personally, I would never hack. I just don't trust it, don't know how to do it, and don't care to learn. It feels too risky to me. I've heard of people losing their towns or making their 3DS useless by not doing it properly.

But with that said, I don't have a problem with hackers or hacking as long as it's not ruining the game for others. I used to play a lot of MMORPGs and was often the target of malicious hackers who would steal my items, lock my account, or just hog maps or dungeons and make playing the game impossible. I've heard stories of people doing some malicious hacking along those lines in ACNL, specifically on the island. So I avoid the online island for that reason.

But if someone just hacks to make the game more enjoyable for themselves and doesn't harm anyone else, then I don't mind. Using hacks to change their name, change their town name, alter their map or place pwps and trees where they normally wouldn't go are fine by me. I've seen some really beautiful dream towns that were obviously hacked, but I still appreciated the effort and creativity those people put into their towns.

So that's my opinion. To each their own as long as it's not negatively impacting others.

I totally agree. This viewpoint is similar to my own. I agree that on other sites or such malicious hacking is wrong, but in ACNL it is hard to "harm" anyone with this method. I would also agree I appreciate the more organically beautiful towns as well. I think the largest impact that has been explained is the impact to the ancillary community (TBT) because of the flooding of the market and hacked items at one time.

I agree that it doesn't bother me if people do it on their own.

I've thought about hacking my game but then I also thought about how obsolete the game would become if I did that, I'd be done and I wouldn't get to enjoy playing the game anymore or feeling accomplished after unlocking my PWP's on my own. I spent a whole week unlocking all the uchi projects, just hours and hours waiting for villagers to unlock these projects and it was so tedious but when I unlocked the last one I felt SO happy. How can you get that feeling from just using a hack to unlock everything?

If other people want to do it then that's their choice. However, I think hacked towns are super tacky I guess? I don't visit hacked town dream addresses, they all look unnatural to me. Whereas going to non-hacked towns I'm like WOW, you can really see how much work people put into their town. Not to say that hacking doesn't require work put in but come on, who worked harder on their town, someone who didn't hack their town or someone who did?​

I agree with everything you wrote nanpan. I think that if you create the atmosphere of "easy" that it can be difficult to motivate yourself to play. That is one of the reasons that I am sort of against it personally.

I very much agree with this.

I briefly hacked a couple years ago but it wasn't to hurt anyone/corrupt anyone. It was more so that I can use spaces that weren't previously available to us to expand my creativity. Yeah sure ACNL is already pretty creative but what about putting neat PWPs in water or hybrids in water? Or making a barrier of trees so it looks uniform? As someone who is a perfectionist with these games I find it boring after a while if I don't get all the villagers I want or my landscaping looks to plain.

So for me it's just using more of what's there but wasn't accessible through normal game play.

However, I no longer hack and I plan not to once the new AC is released, I would at least like to enjoy the more traditional side of the game.

Thanks for your input. I agree that there is a perfectionist aspect of me that really wants to try hacking. I don't think there is anything wrong with doing it. I'm sorry if I implied so. I am also ready to see things come out organically about the new AC as it is released. I'm not jumping on the train to buy a switch and the new release right away, but there is something really great (even for perfectionists) to learn as we go and discover things without guides, play-throughs, or hacking.

 

[Flare]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with hacking honestly. Hacking and editing a Town isn't hurting anyone's self esteem or is it going to cause danger to someone else. There isn't any hacked items that seem to cause a problem with anyone from what I've found and there hasn't been a case where a hacker deleted someone's town.

It's really ironic to see people bash people who hack because they are "ruining their game" when it's actually the ones attacking the hackers who are ruining the experience for the editors. It's up to the person themselves to choose how to wish they play and to mind their business when it comes to whether or not hacking is involved.

 

[Saga]

I briefly considered making a hacked town, but like others have said, I'm too worried about messing up my SD card/game if I make a mistake.

I would only hack the game in order to move a few of my town landmarks for easier path placement, move a couple villager houses for the same reason, change my beach entrance placement a bit so I had more room to landscape around my mayor's house, and change my native fruit. I wouldn't ever hack in items or villagers, as those things are how I feel I "progress" through the game, and it would ruin my personal source of fun, pacing, and accomplishment if I removed that challenge.

I think both vanilla and hacked towns have their up sides: normal towns place stipulations on how you can landscape, so it gives you more of a challenge and forces you to be creative within certain confines. Hacking allows you to express your creativity completely freely, which seems very liberating. I think that both play styles are valid. I would personally prefer to be able to control more things about my town, such as the options hacking provides, but I wish that those features were built into the base game. For the Switch, I'm really hoping that they'll let us build our own town maps, at least to a certain extent. I had to reset for three hours straight to get my current town layout, and even then, I'm only 80% happy with it. I would love if Nintendo would remove that frustration and time-wasting factor for those who prefer not to have to completely rely on luck/randomization (while still having totally random options for those who want them).

Alas, as I said, I'm too afraid of corrupting my game to mess with it, so I'm sticking with my less-than-ideal vanilla town and doing my best!

 

[xSuperMario64x]

Tbh I'm a big fan of using cheat codes and hacking games, not to truly gain anything from it (I usually progress through a game without hacking it) but because it's interesting to see what kinds of things you can do by hacking.

As for Animal Crossing, there's a lot of items that are normally completely unobtainable, but through hacking you can get them (like the moth orchid in City Folk). I think it's nice to use it in that way too.

 

[steele]

Tbh I'm a big fan of using cheat codes and hacking games, not to truly gain anything from it (I usually progress through a game without hacking it) but because it's interesting to see what kinds of things you can do by hacking.

As for Animal Crossing, there's a lot of items that are normally completely unobtainable, but through hacking you can get them (like the moth orchid in City Folk). I think it's nice to use it in that way too.

I agree it is ok to hack if you aren't hurting anyone in the process.

As someone who has been playing since 2013 with the same town legitimately, I completely agree with my dear friend Tropical on how I view hacking. In the context of TBT, I have seen what hacking has done to the economy. I was around in 2013/2014 and I remember how being a shop owner was actually worth it and now what used to be expensive is now only 20% of their original values at least. There is a reason why the collectible market on here is so much more lucrative because it hasn't experienced out of control inflation. There also is a reason why the exchange rate is so high for every TBT because a lot of people have hacked ridiculous amounts of bells alongside natural inflation that legit players cause which accelerated inflation to a unnatural level. I accidentally have done business with shops or participated giveaways on here in the past that were hacked and I disposed every item that I obtained through such transactions because it honestly didn't feel right once I knew the truth behind how they were sourcing the items... Anytime I discover that a shop is sourcing items through hacking, I always report them because I have seen how detrimental they are to the economy on here and other AC sites. One thing I want to add though is that certain items did not get devalued just by hacking, but also by the Welcome Amiibo update which made certain rare items much more obtainable (like the Kitchen Island and Treasure Chest). Another thing to consider is that certain items are being devalued because of the principles inflation, especially hybrids since people have been breeding hybrids for years now, but certain items should still not be as devalued as they are now (especially items that were only given away as DLC years ago and were unorderable).

The only thing I agree on the hacker side of the argument is seeing the game pushed to the limits through modded towns (some are wicked cool) and the discovery of unused items made by the developers at Nintendo for archive purposes, but even then I don't like how hacked dream towns seem to get all the attention on Youtube & the like instead of masterpiece/mind-blowing legitimate dream towns which took 10+ times longer to make and typically took a lot more patience & planning to produce... :/

Overall, I am against hacking and I think all hacking-related activities except for constructive/civil discussions like this thread should remain banned under the rules.

Thank you so much for the thoughtful response! I love your town as it is and think it's honestly a dream town without hacking! I think that you're totally right about TBT and the effects here are damaging to your out of game experience. I don't know if the effects are really that "bad" once they are sort of... stabilized, but for anyone who went through that like you or Tropical I'm sure it was a lot to weather. I don't have anything against hacking the landscape, villagers, or personal accomplishments and such--but then to sell the hacked items for profit and collapse the market is a devastating effect of the hacking.

All good things are double sided like this.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with hacking honestly. Hacking and editing a Town isn't hurting anyone's self esteem or is it going to cause danger to someone else. There isn't any hacked items that seem to cause a problem with anyone from what I've found and there hasn't been a case where a hacker deleted someone's town.

It's really ironic to see people bash people who hack because they are "ruining their game" when it's actually the ones attacking the hackers who are ruining the experience for the editors. It's up to the person themselves to choose how to wish they play and to mind their business when it comes to whether or not hacking is involved.

I agree that hacking can't hurt anyone but someone's own town. I just wanted to know some opinions. I don't think hacking ruins anyone else's town. I think that it would ruin my own personal gameplay because keeping things vanilla helps me stay motivated to play. I think the hacking issue only crosses a line if the hacking hurts other people. In this case the only evidence of that appears to he in the cases of people trying to pass dream towns off as non-hacked, or people crashing the TBT system on the forum (which, in reality, has nothing to do with your individual experience in the game) but that affected some people's ancillary experience on the forums.

I briefly considered making a hacked town, but like others have said, I'm too worried about messing up my SD card/game if I make a mistake.

I would only hack the game in order to move a few of my town landmarks for easier path placement, move a couple villager houses for the same reason, change my beach entrance placement a bit so I had more room to landscape around my mayor's house, and change my native fruit. I wouldn't ever hack in items or villagers, as those things are how I feel I "progress" through the game, and it would ruin my personal source of fun, pacing, and accomplishment if I removed that challenge.

I think both vanilla and hacked towns have their up sides: normal towns place stipulations on how you can landscape, so it gives you more of a challenge and forces you to be creative within certain confines. Hacking allows you to express your creativity completely freely, which seems very liberating. I think that both play styles are valid. I would personally prefer to be able to control more things about my town, such as the options hacking provides, but I wish that those features were built into the base game. For the Switch, I'm really hoping that they'll let us build our own town maps, at least to a certain extent. I had to reset for three hours straight to get my current town layout, and even then, I'm only 80% happy with it. I would love if Nintendo would remove that frustration and time-wasting factor for those who prefer not to have to completely rely on luck/randomization (while still having totally random options for those who want them).

Alas, as I said, I'm too afraid of corrupting my game to mess with it, so I'm sticking with my less-than-ideal vanilla town and doing my best!

I agree with this view for sure Saga! Haha especially the last line about sticking with your less-than-ideal town! For now hacking will remain a sort of fantasy for me.

 

[MasterM64]

Thank you so much for the thoughtful response! I love your town as it is and think it's honestly a dream town without hacking! I think that you're totally right about TBT and the effects here are damaging to your out of game experience. I don't know if the effects are really that "bad" once they are sort of... stabilized, but for anyone who went through that like you or Tropical I'm sure it was a lot to weather. I don't have anything against hacking the landscape, villagers, or personal accomplishments and such--but then to sell the hacked items for profit and collapse the market is a devastating effect of the hacking.

All good things are double sided like this.

You are absolutely welcome and thank you for the feedback on my town (I always appreciate it, I actually will be doing a winter update on it soon which I'll announce in the Non-hacked Dream Towns thread)! I fortunately was not too affected by the amount of inflation as a shop owner since I did have a 3-year hiatus and didn't really own too big of a shop back then, but I was super shocked when I came back especially as someone who paid a absolute fortune for certain things back then (I easily have spent over 2 billion bells total in my town easy since I started with TBT, IGB, item trades, building PWPs, and upgrading my house). It is going to be interesting to see how things are handled with the next game especially since Nintendo has done a better job locking down the Switch in comparison to past consoles (except for the first batches of the system that had a big hardware level flaw). I do think the New Leaf market has stabilized fortunately since New Leaf doesn't have as many active players as it used to which means hacking is not as popular as it used to be, but I do suspect there are still instances of hackers/dupers passing off items as legitimate to sell/giveaway on here (not going to name call here and I only reported ones that I had indisputable proof/experience with). Usually if something is too good to be true, it most likely is. :/ There are tell tell signs that someone is being fraudulent with their inventory, but I would rather keep them secret for obvious reasons so I can assist TBT Staff better with my reporting.

 

[lowaltitude]

Personally, I don't hack, and don't plan to. I have a tough relationship with perfectionism, and I think being able to learn from my past mistakes (those being; PWPs not having the ideal placement, rocks being in the way, beach entrances, etc. etc.) and working with them & around them, gives me a unique perspective on life and how much influence your current actions have on your future.

As weirdly spiritual as that may sound, I really do believe that working with these 'limitations' and looking for solutions other than 'get rid of the problem altogether' is quite enjoyable. I feel like it makes my town unique to me, quirky and 'imperfect' as it may look. The 'perfect map' may not be perfect for everybody, and the 'regular map' may become your own 'perfect map' with time.

 

[MasterM64]

Personally, I don't hack, and don't plan to. I have a tough relationship with perfectionism, and I think being able to learn from my past mistakes (those being; PWPs not having the ideal placement, rocks being in the way, beach entrances, etc. etc.) and working with them & around them, gives me a unique perspective on life and how much influence your current actions have on your future.

As weirdly spiritual as that may sound, I really do believe that working with these 'limitations' and looking for solutions other than 'get rid of the problem altogether' is quite enjoyable. I feel like it makes my town unique to me, quirky and 'imperfect' as it may look. The 'perfect map' may not be perfect for everybody, and the 'regular map' may become your own 'perfect map' with time.

I really love that perspective of yours! I do sometimes feel that going with the flow, planning ahead, and dreaming around the game's limitations (including time progression without time traveling) are key to enjoying Animal Crossing to the fullest and building the best town possible!

 

[lowaltitude]

I really love that perspective of yours! I do sometimes feel that going with the flow, planning ahead, and dreaming around the game's limitations (including time progression without time traveling) are key to enjoying Animal Crossing to the fullest and building the best town possible!

Those are exactly my thoughts!! Also the reason why I don't time travel
I'll admit that I'm very lucky in being able to actually play acnl every day at most times, but without the natural progression of time it wouldn't really feel like a peaceful life sim to me anymore

 

[Stella-Io]

I've seen loads of hacking and wish I could do it myself. Would I do it? If I could, yes, but start with small stuff first. Most importantly, save a back up of my town.

I have no issue with hacking. If people choose to do so, then that's them man. To people who dont/cant hack, it may seem like to them that hackers have it easy, but it's not true. Yes, they don't have to wait for the store to have the items they want, or for the flowers to hurry up and breed, but hacking still takes alot of time and lots of careful planning. People can corrupt and permanently lose their save file if they aren't careful. It's also not easy to look at, it's not like they play their game as normal, go in their pockets and dupe a blue rose. They have to do that throu software that doesn't even look like the town, which makes things hard when you're landscaping. You have to hack the item in the right place, then open that game as normal to check that you did indeed put it near the path and not floating on top of the bridge.

 

[Bluebellie]

I never have hacked my animal crossing game. I feel like it?s too easy to wipe out all saved file. But really this game I feel like no hacking is needed.
I have hacked other games like sims and harvest moon though and that was great
Never really thought I needed to in new leaf.

 

[Stella-Io]

I never have hacked my animal crossing game. I feel like it’s too easy to wipe out all saved file. But really this game I feel like no hacking is needed.
I have hacked other games like sims and harvest moon though and that was great
Never really thought I needed to in new leaf.

Wait you hacked HM? Which one?