Weird Encounter With an Island Hacker... Should I Be Worried For My Save File?!?!

tiffanistarr

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So, I rarely go to Tortimer Island because I'm not the most social person and it leads to a lot of awkward interactions. However, for some reason tonight I had this wacky idea to go be social with others...

I'm no stranger to hackers in ACNL and it generally doesn't bother me. I think it's fascinating to exploit games and do zany things with it. I even love visiting hacked dream towns because the creativity it allows is simply amazing.

Anywho, I get to the island and I decide to do some shark fishing and then all of a sudden this guy says he's going to "warp" everyone back into town. Now, I don't mind people on the island shooting bells and loony items out of their pockets like a t-shirt gun at a sporting event, but when you start talking about "warping" or purposely "erroring" just to be a jerk I'm quick to leave. Tonight though, I wasn't quick enough... He "warped" us all back to our towns BUT they were all there.

Like from my POV I was in my town, but they were still there walking around and doing things. However, from their POV's they were in their own towns but we were in their towns. So it's like we were in our own towns but we weren't at the same time. We were in our towns but in someone elses's town at the same time.

The chat was fully functional and people were talking and carrying on about their business and it was just so freaking bizarre! After maybe a minute of that it gave the error screen then it was back to me getting off Kapp'n's boat like you normally would.

I don't know if I should be scared for my save file or what now... Has this happened to anyone else?

TLDR; Guy used black magic.
 
So, I rarely go to Tortimer Island because I'm not the most social person and it leads to a lot of awkward interactions. However, for some reason tonight I had this wacky idea to go be social with others...

I'm no stranger to hackers in ACNL and it generally doesn't bother me. I think it's fascinating to exploit games and do zany things with it. I even love visiting hacked dream towns because the creativity it allows is simply amazing.

Anywho, I get to the island and I decide to do some shark fishing and then all of a sudden this guy says he's going to "warp" everyone back into town. Now, I don't mind people on the island shooting bells and loony items out of their pockets like a t-shirt gun at a sporting event, but when you start talking about "warping" or purposely "erroring" just to be a jerk I'm quick to leave. Tonight though, I wasn't quick enough... He "warped" us all back to our towns BUT they were all there.

Like from my POV I was in my town, but they were still there walking around and doing things. However, from their POV's they were in their own towns but we were in their towns. So it's like we were in our own towns but we weren't at the same time. We were in our towns but in someone elses's town at the same time.

The chat was fully functional and people were talking and carrying on about their business and it was just so freaking bizarre! After maybe a minute of that it gave the error screen then it was back to me getting off Kapp'n's boat like you normally would.

I don't know if I should be scared for my save file or what now... Has this happened to anyone else?

TLDR; Guy used black magic.

Wow that is an interesting story...i had a guy teleport back to his town and talk to kappn to go to the island and it said to go back to the docks
 
I would turn off without saving for starters.
That's some crazy stuff!
 
I would turn off without saving for starters.
That's some crazy stuff!

I turned off without saving, got back on and everything seems to be normal. I can remember another time a hacker hacked a town hall building onto the middle of the island and what was weird was my town flag that I designed myself was the flag on the building.

I need to stay away from there!
 
hacking is just getting stronger and stronger...

though as far as i know, something like that wouldn't have ruined your town. the way you explained it is a bit confusing but if you mean that everyone else is walking in your town but on their screens they're in their own town, then it wouldn't get affected. you explained that it errored and you were off kapp'ns boat, so basically its like you're still at the island but it only looks like you and they were in their towns. nothing bad :)

online hacking from another player shouldn't be that strong as to damage someone else's save file. but if you ever feel too unsafe, error while you can.
 
hacking is just getting stronger and stronger...

though as far as i know, something like that wouldn't have ruined your town. the way you explained it is a bit confusing but if you mean that everyone else is walking in your town but on their screens they're in their own town, then it wouldn't get affected. you explained that it errored and you were off kapp'ns boat, so basically its like you're still at the island but it only looks like you and they were in their towns. nothing bad :)

online hacking from another player shouldn't be that strong as to damage someone else's save file. but if you ever feel too unsafe, error while you can.


I should have explaind it the way you did!! I knew as I was typing it, that it was confusing, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it to explain it lol. Thank you though! I'm glad it isn't extremely harmful, other than losing all the sharks I caught lol
 
It really interests me when I hear stories like this because, as a hacker myself, I've never heard of these techniques before. It's hard enough for people to hack online at all, never mind warping people around like that.
 
I turned off without saving, got back on and everything seems to be normal. I can remember another time a hacker hacked a town hall building onto the middle of the island and what was weird was my town flag that I designed myself was the flag on the building.

I need to stay away from there!

Good. You should be ok.
Unless they dropped something in your town, and then you saved, I'd be worried, but luckily, you didn't. ^_^
 
This is why I have a love/hate relationship with Tortimer Island. I enjoy what you do there but you have to be alert and cautious about stuff.
 
No, something like that cannot affect your town. The reason you saw your town, is it is still loaded in the memory. When you visit someone else normally, like through the train station, the person you are visiting has their town loaded in your game. That way you can view it and put items in it, etc. When you go to the online island, there is never a time you actually are suppose to be in your town. So it doesn't load anyone else's when you are there.

As for worrying about your town, when you are on the online island, it doesn't allow anything in your save to be altered besides the teeny bit it uses on the island. That teeny bit would be your player you are using there.

Basically, it takes a piece of your save (your player), loads it in a different area, when you are done, it copies it back to your main save. And the way New Leaf works online, there is no way to alter that data unless you do it yourself. You can pick up things or whatever, but the person hacking can't do anything to you directly.

When going to the online island the worst someone can really do to you is crash your game. But nothing will hurt your save. I've been hacking this game since 2016, so I've studied it quite a bit. Just keep in mind that you can encounter hackers that are annoying or mean. If you don't like them, block them. Even if the session ends in a disconnect, a crash, or any other way, they will still be blocked.

TL;DR
No one can alter your town when you go to the online island. The absolute worst that can happen is someone can crash your game.

-

Also note: This is just a post to inform what happened couldn't affect the save. I'm not going to follow up, so I'll just be ignoring any ignorant replies about hackers or whatever.
 
TL;DR
No one can alter your town when you go to the online island. The absolute worst that can happen is someone can crash your game.

-

Also note: This is just a post to inform what happened couldn't affect the save. I'm not going to follow up, so I'll just be ignoring any ignorant replies about hackers or whatever.
preach.

i wasn't sure how to explain this myself, but you did it well, thank you.

island hacking can't affect your permanent save in any way, unless you do something that could bring the hacking back to your town (island box, abd, etc...though there isn't anything bad that could be put in those accidentally and ruin your game. just stay cautious.)
 
preach.

i wasn't sure how to explain this myself, but you did it well, thank you.

island hacking can't affect your permanent save in any way, unless you do something that could bring the hacking back to your town (island box, abd, etc...though there isn't anything bad that could be put in those accidentally and ruin your game. just stay cautious.)
It is possible for any item to be tampered with to cause problems, intentionally or not. By his admission in private and my personal experience in a thread before that.
 
i recently encountered a hacker too...his name was two amiibo logos on top of each other (if you opened his tpc there would be one where his name would be and another one directly below it somewhere around the dream address spot) and when he came it he started flying around the room and teleporting. i left the island asap because i didn't want him to hurt my save file, and also because it was annoying and i didn't want to give him any attention, so i don't know what else he was able to hack with.
have there always been people like this or is there like a sudden resurgence of island hackers?
 
Wow that is really weird. I haven't seen a hacker on club tortimer. I really only visit club tortimer for the items you can't get on your island. A lot of the time I just meet people doing the same thing. It just gets a bit annoying if you want to stay on the island and the game keeps saving when people come and go every few minutes.
 
I want to bump this thread because a similar thing just happened on Club Tortimer. A guy was doing something that was causing it to lag pretty bad. It looked like a Dr. Shrunk emote you normally wouldn't be able to do. It looked like the animation stuck after he did it as well leaving an odd glow, and he wouldn't stop doing it. I was able to hit the Kapp'n icon on the lower screen right after I saw it, but it took me back to the laggy island. So I got to see Resetti again.
 
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