Okay, who has Animal Crossing WW (DS)--I do...

Okay, I picked up Animal Crossing on the day it came out, and I had
previously gotten a Game Cube pretty much for the sole reason of
playing AC. And I did not regret it.

So, even though I'm pretty much destitute, I got the new ACWW (or ACDS
or whatever) today, the day it came out, and I had previously picked up
a DS, again, mostly for the sole reason of playing AC.

The thing that *really* attracted me to the system was interactive
gameplay through free public hotspots. I'm still working on getting
mine configured correctly, but then I've only had the cart for 6 hours,
and I just discovered that all of my local McDonald's are already
perfectly configured. McDonald's...Nintendo...Why am I not surprised.

I'm too tired to drive the 10 minutes to the next spot, so there's no
way I'll be testing that out tonight. There's also one other major
problem, in that visiting between villages is not exactly
spontaneous...Both parties must have each other's codes, someone has to
"open the gate" to their village, and I'm pretty sure you need to be
coordinating this on something like a real-time message board (which
this usenet group is most definitely _not_). At least not for me.

Since I am one of the (many) adult players of AC, and I've been reading
the kidlets on Gamefaqs talking about clans and gangs and such, I am
fairly leery about giving out my code phrase, village name,
etc...Apparently, there is a good reason Nintendo made visiting so
tricky...I haven't had time to check it out, but it appears that
visitors _can_ actually screw up your village (e.g., cut down trees).
The reason I didn't check it out is that I didn't want to read anything
about the game till it came out, so if I'm spreading rumors, don't kill
me.

Anyway, the kidlets I've been reading have been going on orgies of
trips and visitations, so it can't be that bad. I haven't even read the
manual completely, and the official game guide says almost *nothing*
about the process, so I can't go into any further detail. I don't own a
PC, so I can't even vaguely comment on all the ways you can connect up
with one of those (they are many and they are all complex).

Okay, that's my rundown for the basic reason for AC owners to upgrade.
Here are some pluses and minues, in more or less random order about the
game that I have noticed, after precisely 6 hours of game ownership.

WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS--...but at worst, they are very, very
minor...

--The first day is still ridiculously easy, assuming you can get a
fishing rod. Otherwise...I cleared my debt in less than two hours
without really working at it. Upgrade comes at midnight, natch...But I
forgot that Nook closes for a day to upgrade himself, so, well,
tomorrow is scratched. (Recall, there's no place to store fish at
first).

--All the NES games are gone. Sorry. They're gone. But we all own the
original AC, so...why should I care?

--There are no acres anymore. This affects villager movement, and will
probably change the whole Golden Axe quest/process.

--Fishing is slightly trickier than in GC, since there is no rumble
pack and again, no acres. So not only do fish stick around after you
leave their sight, they will also quite happily drift far away from
you. Anyone halfway decent in fishing in GC can deal with not having a
buzzer, but new players may find it tricky. It's going to be a little
bit harder for three-year-olds this time.

--By the way, there are a lot more fish (54?), and I found 19 to be in
season today. My musuem is moving smoothly. I think there are also 54
bugs and something like 32 fossils. The museum itself is consideranly
bigger, although compared to the GC, the graphics leave something to be
desired. One of the joys of the old AC was the mixture of almost
photorealistic fish and furniture in the same game with grade-school
cartoonishness. Still, the graphics are more than acceptible.

--There is now an observatory in the museum, and you can design and
name your own constellations. Obviously, haven't tried that yet. There
is also a coffee bar in the Museum, and drinking coffee is said to make
you fun faster. (Might come in handy the next time I need to catch that
dumb yellow butterfly...) But, natch, haven't tried that yet. Oh, and
KK Slider now performs at the coffee bar...He had a couple new songs
(52?) but I haven't checked yet.

--Major disappointment coming up--...There's only one player house in
the village. So if you want to run a village co-op, you *sure* better
be compatible. Everyone shares the upper floor of the single "mansion"
(or shack, in my case). Yes, even the shacks have two floors. Not sure
how that will affect the space or shape of the final upgrade, but I
used to use the other three mansions as theme rooms and surplus
storage, so I am NOT happy about this. But I'll cope, I guess...

--Interestingly enough, there is a Psychologist animal character in the
game. Apparently he teaches your character how to do those emoticon
animations that up until now only the animals could...

--Mabel took over the fashion business; Nook no longer sells clothes.
Clothes are pretty much the same, but we now have...for lack of a
better word...headgear. She had pink glasses and a motorcycle helmet on
display today...I tried them both on, but I am neither Elton John nor
Evil Knevil, so I passed. Apparently, they have LOTS of hats, beards,
glasses, etc., available.

--By the way, the new player's head design is entirely normal. No
"horns" for the boys, no weird brain cancer looks for the girls. Eyes
are still problematic. I got the perfectly round ones with small
pupils. I would have preferred my old oval eyes with huge pupils, but I
doubt anyone has broken the intro question code yet, so, eh.

--The island is gone. Absolutely. Kapp'n is still around, but he had to
find new employment. I won't spoil *this* one.

--The train station is gone, replaces with a vaguely archaic kind of
gate. The police station is gone. Copper and Booker are still in the
game, so I'll let you work that one out on your own.

--The Well is gone; the Post Office is gone; and the Dump is gone.
They've all been consolidated into a single City Hall. Which works
pretty much exactly the same as all three did before.

-- The Holidays seem to have suffered massive revisions. I took a brief
scan of the new ones, couldn't recognize anything, and decided not to
find out anything further. They now seem to occur weekly though, and
many seem repetitive (like the fishing contests). It looks like our
friends in the PC crowd couldn't manage to squeeze Ramadan in AC
calendar so decided to axe pretty much everything. (That actually
happened in local school district!) Oh well.

Library's closing, so I have to go. I could write more, and I probably
will, since this group will start coming back to life, but don't email
me, 'cause that's not my address anymore...

I picked it up today also...pretty sweet. Email me if you'd like to
exchange codes.
<thom_burr.RemoveThis@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1133920117.138413.144450@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Okay, I picked up Animal Crossing on the day it came out, and I had
> previously gotten a Game Cube pretty much for the sole reason of
> playing AC. And I did not regret it.
>
> So, even though I'm pretty much destitute, I got the new ACWW (or ACDS
> or whatever) today, the day it came out, and I had previously picked up
> a DS, again, mostly for the sole reason of playing AC.
>
> The thing that *really* attracted me to the system was interactive
> gameplay through free public hotspots. I'm still working on getting
> mine configured correctly, but then I've only had the cart for 6 hours,
> and I just discovered that all of my local McDonald's are already
> perfectly configured. McDonald's...Nintendo...Why am I not surprised.
>
> I'm too tired to drive the 10 minutes to the next spot, so there's no
> way I'll be testing that out tonight. There's also one other major
> problem, in that visiting between villages is not exactly
> spontaneous...Both parties must have each other's codes, someone has to
> "open the gate" to their village, and I'm pretty sure you need to be
> coordinating this on something like a real-time message board (which
> this usenet group is most definitely _not_). At least not for me.
>
> Since I am one of the (many) adult players of AC, and I've been reading
> the kidlets on Gamefaqs talking about clans and gangs and such, I am
> fairly leery about giving out my code phrase, village name,
> etc...Apparently, there is a good reason Nintendo made visiting so
> tricky...I haven't had time to check it out, but it appears that
> visitors _can_ actually screw up your village (e.g., cut down trees).
> The reason I didn't check it out is that I didn't want to read anything
> about the game till it came out, so if I'm spreading rumors, don't kill
> me.
>
> Anyway, the kidlets I've been reading have been going on orgies of
> trips and visitations, so it can't be that bad. I haven't even read the
> manual completely, and the official game guide says almost *nothing*
> about the process, so I can't go into any further detail. I don't own a
> PC, so I can't even vaguely comment on all the ways you can connect up
> with one of those (they are many and they are all complex).
>
> Okay, that's my rundown for the basic reason for AC owners to upgrade.
> Here are some pluses and minues, in more or less random order about the
> game that I have noticed, after precisely 6 hours of game ownership.
>
> WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS--...but at worst, they are very, very
> minor...
>
> --The first day is still ridiculously easy, assuming you can get a
> fishing rod. Otherwise...I cleared my debt in less than two hours
> without really working at it. Upgrade comes at midnight, natch...But I
> forgot that Nook closes for a day to upgrade himself, so, well,
> tomorrow is scratched. (Recall, there's no place to store fish at
> first).
>
> --All the NES games are gone. Sorry. They're gone. But we all own the
> original AC, so...why should I care?
>
> --There are no acres anymore. This affects villager movement, and will
> probably change the whole Golden Axe quest/process.
>
> --Fishing is slightly trickier than in GC, since there is no rumble
> pack and again, no acres. So not only do fish stick around after you
> leave their sight, they will also quite happily drift far away from
> you. Anyone halfway decent in fishing in GC can deal with not having a
> buzzer, but new players may find it tricky. It's going to be a little
> bit harder for three-year-olds this time.
>
> --By the way, there are a lot more fish (54?), and I found 19 to be in
> season today. My musuem is moving smoothly. I think there are also 54
> bugs and something like 32 fossils. The museum itself is consideranly
> bigger, although compared to the GC, the graphics leave something to be
> desired. One of the joys of the old AC was the mixture of almost
> photorealistic fish and furniture in the same game with grade-school
> cartoonishness. Still, the graphics are more than acceptible.
>
> --There is now an observatory in the museum, and you can design and
> name your own constellations. Obviously, haven't tried that yet. There
> is also a coffee bar in the Museum, and drinking coffee is said to make
> you fun faster. (Might come in handy the next time I need to catch that
> dumb yellow butterfly...) But, natch, haven't tried that yet. Oh, and
> KK Slider now performs at the coffee bar...He had a couple new songs
> (52?) but I haven't checked yet.
>
> --Major disappointment coming up--...There's only one player house in
> the village. So if you want to run a village co-op, you *sure* better
> be compatible. Everyone shares the upper floor of the single "mansion"
> (or shack, in my case). Yes, even the shacks have two floors. Not sure
> how that will affect the space or shape of the final upgrade, but I
> used to use the other three mansions as theme rooms and surplus
> storage, so I am NOT happy about this. But I'll cope, I guess...
>
> --Interestingly enough, there is a Psychologist animal character in the
> game. Apparently he teaches your character how to do those emoticon
> animations that up until now only the animals could...
>
> --Mabel took over the fashion business; Nook no longer sells clothes.
> Clothes are pretty much the same, but we now have...for lack of a
> better word...headgear. She had pink glasses and a motorcycle helmet on
> display today...I tried them both on, but I am neither Elton John nor
> Evil Knevil, so I passed. Apparently, they have LOTS of hats, beards,
> glasses, etc., available.
>
> --By the way, the new player's head design is entirely normal. No
> "horns" for the boys, no weird brain cancer looks for the girls. Eyes
> are still problematic. I got the perfectly round ones with small
> pupils. I would have preferred my old oval eyes with huge pupils, but I
> doubt anyone has broken the intro question code yet, so, eh.
>
> --The island is gone. Absolutely. Kapp'n is still around, but he had to
> find new employment. I won't spoil *this* one.
>
> --The train station is gone, replaces with a vaguely archaic kind of
> gate. The police station is gone. Copper and Booker are still in the
> game, so I'll let you work that one out on your own.
>
> --The Well is gone; the Post Office is gone; and the Dump is gone.
> They've all been consolidated into a single City Hall. Which works
> pretty much exactly the same as all three did before.
>
> -- The Holidays seem to have suffered massive revisions. I took a brief
> scan of the new ones, couldn't recognize anything, and decided not to
> find out anything further. They now seem to occur weekly though, and
> many seem repetitive (like the fishing contests). It looks like our
> friends in the PC crowd couldn't manage to squeeze Ramadan in AC
> calendar so decided to axe pretty much everything. (That actually
> happened in local school district!) Oh well.
>
> Library's closing, so I have to go. I could write more, and I probably
> will, since this group will start coming back to life, but don't email
> me, 'cause that's not my address anymore...
>