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Apr. 12th, 2020 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
girlofpreyI continue to be blown away - boggled - by the terrible planning that went into the Animal Crossing Easter "Bunny Day" event.
For those who don't know, Animal Crossing is a sweet little game where you play as a cartoon character who moves into a new 'settlement' - island or farm or town - and immediately somehow become it's leader, and can spruce it up if you want to. You can do activities like fishing or bug-hunting, and whenever you catch something new you can donate it to the settlement's museum, and it fills in your bug wikipedia in-game. You can also build things, and need resources to do so, so you have to chop trees for wood and stones for rock. And there are little things like balloons that fly overhead sometimes, and if you shoot them down they'll drop an item.
The Bunny Day event started on April 1st, and lasts until today, Easter. That's 12 days. On the first day, a slightly creepy bunny turns up and freaks out all over you, telling you about Bunny Day, and how he'll be hiding eggs and recipes, and wants you to find them all before time is up. And then the rest of the time, it's about finding those eggs and recipes, and building things before the event's over. Here's the thing - the eggs are everywhere. You hit a tree because you need wood - an egg comes out. Sometimes all you get it eggs. Hit a rock because you need stone, and rocks are in short supply. Eggs instead of stone. You see a shadow in the water, which often means a fish - sometimes it's trash, but usually a fish - and you go and you fish it and you go through the whole minigame, and it's an egg. You hear the whistle of a balloon overhead, and get excited about a new item. Literally half the balloons will now be easter balloons, which just drop eggs.
Now this wouldn't be so bad, except for two things - one, almost all the bunny day things you can craft are fucking ugly. I've got a few rainbow-coloured things I like, but for the most part, sickening. Number two, in this game they introduced breakable tools. So you can only use them a certain number of times before they break and you have to make a new one. I can't quite describe the feeling of going out to fish, seeing a shadow, fishing for it hoping for something new, you get an egg, and then your fishing rod breaks and you have to go make a new one before you can even start fishing again. And the eggs are everywhere.
But on top of that, they started the event on April 1st. A lot of the events in the game are seasonal, it follows real time so gets dark when it's sunset where you are, and has spring plants and animals when it's spring where you are. It's still divided up into months though - so the start of April was the start of spring, and the start of the summer season, just to make things easier for the game. It was the start, therefore, of a lot of new insects and fish being able to catch in game. The insects weren't a problem, because you could see what you were catching, but you can't with the fish, they're just shadows, so you'd go out trying to get something new, not knowing what you'd get, and half the time it was fucking eggs. It's also quite close to the start of the game for everyone - the game came out on March 20th - so at the very beginning of the game when you're building stuff and need a lot of wood and stone, half of your haul would be eggs you hate and a bunch of broken tools. And on top of that, they ran another event at the same time - the sakura event, which is based on the Japanese cherry blossom season. It happened during the same period as Bunny Day, but didn't last as long, had prettier items, and recipes for them were harder to find. The easiest way to get them was balloons - half your balloons will be Easter balloons. You can't even listen out for them, because just finding a balloon won't get you anything if it's an Easter balloon, that will definitely give you an egg. Why split your events and focus like that? Why?
And on top of that, yesterday in game I got my first tournament, which is basically a competition to catch fish or bugs. I don't know if it's because I only just completed my plaza or if it's the same for everyone, but I know it only happens once a season. The tournament I got was a fishing tournament, where you could opt to take part in competitions - which you had to pay for with in-game money - to catch as many fish as you could in three minutes. The first three 'fish' I caught were eggs. Which don't count towards your total, just for 'effort'. Not only do they not count towards your total, you get a little message that comes up whenever you catch anything, which you have to click through, and your timer doesn't stop for it, so you're still using up your three minutes. When you get an egg, you get two messages to click through. Which wastes even more of your time.
And I just. It wasn't the biggest deal, especially the fishing tournament, but why have an event that so gets in the way of everything else you do in the game? Everything else your game is supposed to be about? Should I really be putting building everything on hold just for the sake of this event? That lasts so long and won't go away? It was so frustrating, and I like the game, and they did update it so you got less eggs halfway through, but good god. I hope they rethink their strategy for any future events they're going to do. Or at least try not to run other - maybe better - events alongside it. There's plenty of each season to go around.
Happy Easter, everyone.
For those who don't know, Animal Crossing is a sweet little game where you play as a cartoon character who moves into a new 'settlement' - island or farm or town - and immediately somehow become it's leader, and can spruce it up if you want to. You can do activities like fishing or bug-hunting, and whenever you catch something new you can donate it to the settlement's museum, and it fills in your bug wikipedia in-game. You can also build things, and need resources to do so, so you have to chop trees for wood and stones for rock. And there are little things like balloons that fly overhead sometimes, and if you shoot them down they'll drop an item.
The Bunny Day event started on April 1st, and lasts until today, Easter. That's 12 days. On the first day, a slightly creepy bunny turns up and freaks out all over you, telling you about Bunny Day, and how he'll be hiding eggs and recipes, and wants you to find them all before time is up. And then the rest of the time, it's about finding those eggs and recipes, and building things before the event's over. Here's the thing - the eggs are everywhere. You hit a tree because you need wood - an egg comes out. Sometimes all you get it eggs. Hit a rock because you need stone, and rocks are in short supply. Eggs instead of stone. You see a shadow in the water, which often means a fish - sometimes it's trash, but usually a fish - and you go and you fish it and you go through the whole minigame, and it's an egg. You hear the whistle of a balloon overhead, and get excited about a new item. Literally half the balloons will now be easter balloons, which just drop eggs.
Now this wouldn't be so bad, except for two things - one, almost all the bunny day things you can craft are fucking ugly. I've got a few rainbow-coloured things I like, but for the most part, sickening. Number two, in this game they introduced breakable tools. So you can only use them a certain number of times before they break and you have to make a new one. I can't quite describe the feeling of going out to fish, seeing a shadow, fishing for it hoping for something new, you get an egg, and then your fishing rod breaks and you have to go make a new one before you can even start fishing again. And the eggs are everywhere.
But on top of that, they started the event on April 1st. A lot of the events in the game are seasonal, it follows real time so gets dark when it's sunset where you are, and has spring plants and animals when it's spring where you are. It's still divided up into months though - so the start of April was the start of spring, and the start of the summer season, just to make things easier for the game. It was the start, therefore, of a lot of new insects and fish being able to catch in game. The insects weren't a problem, because you could see what you were catching, but you can't with the fish, they're just shadows, so you'd go out trying to get something new, not knowing what you'd get, and half the time it was fucking eggs. It's also quite close to the start of the game for everyone - the game came out on March 20th - so at the very beginning of the game when you're building stuff and need a lot of wood and stone, half of your haul would be eggs you hate and a bunch of broken tools. And on top of that, they ran another event at the same time - the sakura event, which is based on the Japanese cherry blossom season. It happened during the same period as Bunny Day, but didn't last as long, had prettier items, and recipes for them were harder to find. The easiest way to get them was balloons - half your balloons will be Easter balloons. You can't even listen out for them, because just finding a balloon won't get you anything if it's an Easter balloon, that will definitely give you an egg. Why split your events and focus like that? Why?
And on top of that, yesterday in game I got my first tournament, which is basically a competition to catch fish or bugs. I don't know if it's because I only just completed my plaza or if it's the same for everyone, but I know it only happens once a season. The tournament I got was a fishing tournament, where you could opt to take part in competitions - which you had to pay for with in-game money - to catch as many fish as you could in three minutes. The first three 'fish' I caught were eggs. Which don't count towards your total, just for 'effort'. Not only do they not count towards your total, you get a little message that comes up whenever you catch anything, which you have to click through, and your timer doesn't stop for it, so you're still using up your three minutes. When you get an egg, you get two messages to click through. Which wastes even more of your time.
And I just. It wasn't the biggest deal, especially the fishing tournament, but why have an event that so gets in the way of everything else you do in the game? Everything else your game is supposed to be about? Should I really be putting building everything on hold just for the sake of this event? That lasts so long and won't go away? It was so frustrating, and I like the game, and they did update it so you got less eggs halfway through, but good god. I hope they rethink their strategy for any future events they're going to do. Or at least try not to run other - maybe better - events alongside it. There's plenty of each season to go around.
Happy Easter, everyone.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-12 06:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-12 10:31 pm (UTC)