Hello chums,

Like many of you, I have been eager for Animal Crossing for...years. How long since the 3DS one? I've waited that long.

However, it seems like EVERYONE i've tuned into on Twitch is cheating...relentlessly.

I look, and I see people already with their museums. With insanely big houses, stacked to the gills with cool items. All sorts of fish/bugs.

I'm not gonna tell people how to play their games...but it's been out for two days. Is there anything more pathetic? Like what do you even get out of it?

Well I can't imagine the progression of a typical Animal Crossing is terribly friendly to Twitch streaming so I can see why you would cheat there to speed the process along and show off more of the game.

The real-time aspect of AC has always been something some people have struggled with. The series isn't really built to support someone who's going to sit there and play for a dozen hours a day, but that has never stopped anyone from doing just that.

Also yeah, the rise of social media and streaming and so on has basically created an environment where 'serious' progression and all the subtle side effects that come with chasing/following that are heavily ingrained in the way people play and share now.

Animal Crossing isn't really a streaming game to be honest. Anyone streaming it that relies on viewers for money is probably a variety streamer who jumps from game release to game release, so they'll play for a week and then ditch to play something else. Long term animal crossing doesn't work for what they want, so they cheat to keep viewer attention and so they can see the end game stuff.

I haven't owned a The Sims since The Sims 2, but I distinctly recall it was about three hours into The Sims before I started typing rosebud;,;,;,;,;,;,;,,;,;,;,;,;,;,;,;,;, or whatever it was into the command console and never looked back.

meh, if people want to subvert the thing that's cool i guess.

does seem antithetical to the nature of animal crossing though- this is my first time playing and it seems like a game that's very much trying to tell me, 'hey- relax, guy. you do you, you feel me?'

Uh... I've expanded my house twice (once each day), opened the store and the museum, and I'm only on day three. I'm not using cheats, I'm just playing animal crossing.

I assume you're talking about people messing around with the system clock to speed up how stuff is built, or something like that?

@sweep: Yea I was definitely expecting it to take a bit longer before I paid off my initial vacation package and got the option to build a house. I put off upgrading yesterday, because I was expecting at least a week or so of tent living, but cracked today (was worried I'd be delaying other progression), so by tomorrow I'll have a house and the museum, no cheating involved, and hardly bingeing the game (like an hour or two a day, excluding launch day which was probably 2 or 3 hours).

Doesn't seem too crazy that folks who play for a living would have progressed farther faster with or without cheating.

@jsake: It's a really tight window to get the museum built and open on Sunday without cheating. You'd have to play at midnight launch after it unlocked long enough to get blathers to come in on Friday after the 5 a.m. reset. If you didn't play at launch between midnight and 5 a.m. then there's no way to have the museum fully unlocked today. Not saying the average person who does cheated, but just saying there is a window the really dedicated could have legitimately used to be a day ahead of everyone who played it after they woke up on Friday.

So far my fiance and I have upgraded all progress objectives to their limit Friday and Saturday without starting at midnight and our museum is under construction today. So you aren't too far behind.

Edit: For those unaware, the museum appears to require three days.

1st: nook donations, the next day blathers will come.

2nd: blathers donations, he'll have enough to get approval to build the following day.

3rd: he's building on the third day and will be done the following.

People cheat at everything.

Also I find it weird to say that people are playing Animal Crossing, of all games, wrong. I personally haven't cheated and my museum is scheduled to open tomorrow and I have the store and a house with 1 upgrade (I didn't even play on Friday but I played a fair amount over the weekend.)

But people cheat because they want to see the cool later game stuff. There's no wrong way to play Animal Crossing. The whole point is just to do whatever you want.

Some people only play games to "compete" and "win" and Animal Crossing actively resists that with its real time clock and schedule, so they cheat because that's what they like out of games. I play Animal Crossing to chill out and I like the daily rhythms of the game, so I don't cheat, but I totally get why they do.

I would love to see the Sekiro "you cheated yourself" meme applied to Animal Crossing, though. That's something I would enjoy.

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.

You didn't grow.

You didn't improve.

You took a shortcut and gained nothing.

You experienced a hollow victory.

Nothing was risked and nothing was gained.

It's sad that you don't know the difference.

no judgement, you buy it you play it your way. for me, the game is made so great by immersing myself in the island, remembering my cluttered cozy tent and first home, meandering through the echo-laden museum with nothing but a bass and a butterfly inside, knowing the greatness the next year will bring to my Outer Heaven. cheating would just make this happy home designer i think.

I'm on a dutch Nintendo account in South America, so for us the game unlocked at 6pm on Thursday (midnight in Europe). Our passports say March 19th :)

I'm not letting anyone time-travel on our island, because that seriously glitched the game a few times on 3DS, leaving a then 9-year old girl in tears because all her flowers wilted or something.

However, we have been using the item duplication glitch, because I really don't enjoy the grind for bells -- that's not what I come to Animal Crossing for. (We did this with an Action Replay on the 3DS originally).

This is what happens when you lay off Mr. Resetti, all hell breaks loose!

Snagging all those tarantulas feels like cheating too.

I WANTED BLATHERS TO HURRY THE FUCK UP!! Once I got the museum I haven't done anything else, but I would not be denied, it's too beautiful I needed it.