Villager moving without prompt??

[Miqo]

One of my friends favourite villagers has decided to move out unannounced. I know this was a very annoying feature in New Leaf, but both my friend and I have been reading info and everywhere seems to say that villagers in New Horizons will never move unless they've spoken to you first, yet.. my friends villager has decided to tell them that they're moving and my friend hasn't seen a speech bubble on his head or anything, it was just sudden and out of the blue.

Since I've started my island again, I'm only at the early stages where I have the 3 plots you need to furnish. The first plot I put down was sold instantly, so I put down and decorated the second one and went to my friends island to see the villager in boxes, but there's no option to invite him to my island. Due to this, the only other option I see is to try and progress in the game to the point where I can sell plots of land and try it that way. Does anyone know if this will work? I'm trying to save their villager so they can adopt them back off me in the future, but I'm worried he's bugged or something and will just flat out refuse to accept any invites no matter how hard I try.

Please let me know if this will work or if anyone has had this issue before, thank you.

 

[purple_vixen]

I saw one guide saying that you needed to have your first 10 villagers before you could adopt a villager who was in boxes. I was able to adopt villagers in boxes once I had started buying the polts of land from Tom Nook for 10k (I hadn't tried earlier, though).

There's a Hold My Villager thread where other people on the forum can offer to help ypur friend if you don't want to time travel/get stuck with random villagers as you rush to progress with the game.

 

[Xeleron]

That seems very odd, sometimes my villagers won't have a thought bubble, but they will at the very least be in a "thinking pose" when asking me about moving. Maybe your friend just though it was a normal conversation, because they didn't have a though bubble and accidentally let them leave (?)

How many times did you speak to the villager? I was once adopting a villager from someone and I had to speak to him several times until I had the option to invite them into my island.

 

[purple_vixen]

How many times did you speak to the villager? I was once adopting a villager from someone and I had to speak to him several times until I had the option to invite them into my island.

Good point. I know that they sometimes need do go through other dialogue before you get to them saying that they don't have anywhere to go yet - and that's when you can swoop in and invite them to your island.

 

[Xeleron]

Good point. I know that they sometimes need do go through other dialogue before you get to them saying that they don't have anywhere to go yet - and that's when you can swoop in and invite them to your island.

I remember freaking out because they wouldn't ask to move in, but I kept at it until finally they brought it up. I had no idea that there was dialogue you needed to go through, so that's great information to have!

 

[usa-chan]

i think you should be able to adopt after you get your first 6 villagers. the starters are always uchi and jock, the first three to move are locked to be lazy, peppy, and normal, and the sixth is always a smug. afterwards, there is no personality lock so you should be able to adopt the villager from your friend.

 

[Miqo]

Thanks for the responses, guys, they're much appreciated. I didn't know that villagers were locked to types like usa-chan mentioned, so this is probably why I was unable to get him. I'm not sure how many times I spoke to the villager, but again, if those are locked, I'd never have got him anyway. Thankfully I've managed to get to the point where I can sell land now, so I should be able to pick the villager up once my friend wakes up.

This does beg another question, however. If I take the villager from my friend and have my friend go to the next day (we do both prefer to play with TT, so it's no issue for us) and have the empty plot of the villager that I just took, if I was to rush to fill my island to 10 max villagers and then use an amiibo to kick out the villager, would my friend then be able to come and take him straight back? I'd love for that to work so my friend can have their villager back asap.

Edit: The above did work, thankfully. My friend got their villager back and their villager even apologised for leaving and agreed to come back.