# "Random" Villager move-ins



## BipolarBear (May 18, 2020)

I've been trying to take data on what villagers will move into your town when you have an empty plot available and choose not to fill it with the campsite, a mystery island villager, or someone that was in boxes from another town.

I had a thread on here a few weeks back talking about the "villager move-in queue" and how it related to "the void". I just want to come back here to share what I found as well as something mysterious that I am very unsure about, hoping I can get some feedback.

I decided to continuously let villagers move into empty plots that I create by allowing villagers to move out when they ask. As I have villagers move into these plots naturally, I wrote them down as well as the villages that they moved from.

My data is as follows:
1. Static (Village A)
2. Kyle (Village B)
3. Colton (Village A)
4. Julian (Village C)
5. Canberra (Village D)
6. Maple (Random move-in)
7. Tammy (Random move-in)

Villagers 1-4 came from friends that I played the game with and visited during the first few weeks of the game. We will call their towns Village A, Village B, and Village C.

These villagers were among the very first ones that moved out of their towns.

I was under the impression that when you let someone randomly move into your town, that the villager that was in your "move-in queue"first in line would claim the plot. So, attempting to save Biff from my friend (she recently had him move out), I let someone randomly move into my town (Static, Villager 1) and then had them come visit my island immediately. I also visited their island, just to be safe. Their island is Village A in this case.

So after this I was under the impression that Biff was now in my "move-in queue", so I figured if I just cycled through everyone that was in my move-in-queue I would eventually have him claim an empty plot.

This is where things get mysterious. Villager 5 came from someone that I recently interacted with, not the person that I just had visit me from Village A.

As I was moving villagers out, there were a few that friends of mine wanted so I let them come over and claim them. I recorded this as well, expecting to get villagers that recently moved out from their islands into my move-in queue.

Now it gets really wonky. The next villager that moves in (Villager 6) was a random move-in. Not from any town, completely random. Even though I interacted with a bunch of people throughout this process and while having room in my "move-in queue", a random move-in still ended up happening. After having this occur, I had the person from Village A visit me once more.

Then, I tried again having a random move-in occur. Villager 7 claimed the plot, from no town in particular. Another random move-in, even though I just interacted with the friend from Village A.

Something more to note, the person from Village A has been practicing "social distancing" as per my request (haha). Meaning they have not been to, or had any visitors from any other town. Their move-out queue should have quite a few people in it, including Biff.

Recently, they had Phoebe move out. I expected Phoebe to be the one to move into my town next, but that did not happen, as you can see.

The only thing I can say for sure is that the "move-in queue" is 4 villagers long, prioritizing villagers that moved out *first* from anyone that visits your town. The reason why I know this is because the first 4 villagers that I had in my move-in queue were sitting in there for months of playing the game, whereas the minute I let one of them move into my island, a "spot" opened up for a villager from someone that I recently interacted with. This happened immediately after/before (I cannot remember...) I made that slot available. Once I asked that person how long ago Canberra moved out for them, they let me know that it was a while ago, and they have had others move out afterward. This means that the oldest villager in your "move-out queue" must be prioritized to move to other islands. Other than this, I am fairly confused. It would appear that I can no longer get anyone from other people at this point, unless random move-ins are also a chance occurrence in the move-in process, and I only got lucky with my first 5 having them all been from other towns.

Does anyone have any data whatsoever on this random move-in process?

TLDR; I stopped being able to get villagers from other towns to "randomly" move in. Why?


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## FraudulentDimetrodon (May 18, 2020)

This is some interesting science on the void and move-in queue! I really wish that I had an extra Switch to do some science myself; I'm not sure if anyone has done any good research into it (I'm mostly seeing rumors, things like "your void and/or queue will clear after 4 in-game days, or whatever). I don't have any good feedback (I'm going to keep thinking on it a bit), but I just had some random thoughts as someone who's also trying to figure this stuff out purely by word-of-mouth.

Do you happen to have any Amiibo that you can test with? One issue that I've seen pop up constantly is people trying to invite Amiibo but being unable to where the villager leaves a message along the lines of, "I'm too busy moving to talk." The theory is that if you get this message, this villager is already in your move-in queue, and thus can't be invited to your campsite. It's supposed to be a fail-safe mechanic (i.e. if you invite Julian from a NMT Island, then invite his Amiibo, obviously you'll fail), but it's very poorly thought out, especially given the move-in queue. I haven't seen anyone resolve this glitch one way or another; it seems like time doesn't clear the move-in queue, and I haven't seen anyone try to keep moving in random villagers from the move-in queue.

Basically, I was thinking that you could try testing to see who may be in your move-in queue based on who you're expecting (i.e. you expected to see Phoebe, but she didn't show up).

Other thoughts... this is more on the void side of things. I'm not sure if we ever figured out in NL if the move-_out_ queue (aka the void) has a limit or not, and no one has figured it out for NH yet, I think. As an arbitrary example, say the limit is 10. You move out 10 villagers without even interacting with someone online. You move out an 11th villager. Does the 1st villager in the void get pushed off, or does the 11th villager not make it into the void?

It also doesn't seem like we know how the void gets cleared in NH (or the move-in queue for that matter), or if they even can. So my random thoughts are things like... If villagers who moved out first chronologically are prioritized in the void, does that mean that newer move-outs never made it into the void? And if the villagers in someone's void exceeds that of someone's move-in queue, what happens. I.E. your queue's limit is 4, the queue has 4 empty slots, your friend's void has 5 villagers, so you get... how many? 4? 1? Who knows? It looks like you got 2 villagers from Village A at a time, so I'm wondering if your friend had more move-outs and they got cleared from the visit, or if you just got a random amount from that void. And what happens to that 5th villager? Are they finally cleared forever?

On a slightly related note, having the move-in queue be at least 3 villagers makes sense because I imagine that villagers 3-5 (your default Lazy, Peppy, and Normal villagers at the start of the game) function with the same queue, where you can invite all 3 at once before setting down all your plots.

As an aside, can we just normalize the "move-in queue" term? I keep seeing people say things like, "I had a villager move in from _my void_," which feels confusing.


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## Jared:3 (May 18, 2020)

Honestly the void in this game is way more complicated then in NL it makes me nervous to not have a plot filled immediately because I do visit peoples towns often and I don't want any voided villagers moving into my town so I always have NMT on me before I let a villager move out!


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## BipolarBear (May 18, 2020)

FraudulentDimetrodon said:


> This is some interesting science on the void and move-in queue! I really wish that I had an extra Switch to do some science myself; I'm not sure if anyone has done any good research into it (I'm mostly seeing rumors, things like "your void and/or queue will clear after 4 in-game days, or whatever). I don't have any good feedback (I'm going to keep thinking on it a bit), but I just had some random thoughts as someone who's also trying to figure this stuff out purely by word-of-mouth.
> 
> Do you happen to have any Amiibo that you can test with? One issue that I've seen pop up constantly is people trying to invite Amiibo but being unable to where the villager leaves a message along the lines of, "I'm too busy moving to talk." The theory is that if you get this message, this villager is already in your move-in queue, and thus can't be invited to your campsite. It's supposed to be a fail-safe mechanic (i.e. if you invite Julian from a NMT Island, then invite his Amiibo, obviously you'll fail), but it's very poorly thought out, especially given the move-in queue. I haven't seen anyone resolve this glitch one way or another; it seems like time doesn't clear the move-in queue, and I haven't seen anyone try to keep moving in random villagers from the move-in queue.
> 
> ...



The only Amiibo I have is Tybalt, who I planned on using last once I have 9 villagers that are permanently staying... buuut a friend has Tybalt on his island and invited me to have him move to my island when he gets his photo. So, it is possible that I can use his amiibo to test this theory! I will definitely try that out later.

I had the same questions about whether or not the move-in queue and move-out queues functioned as queues or stacks. If it is a queue system, the oldest one should get priority to move out of it when the newest one enters, whereas if it is a stack the newest one would not be able to enter at all if it is full.

I can say that my friend from Village A definitely had villagers in her move-out queue. That is where my confusion lies. As you have pointed out, I had 2 villagers from her town in my move-in queue at some point, so there is no limit to the number of villagers from one village in the move-in queue according to that.

Also regarding the 10 villagers that were in your recent move-outs in the previous games, we knew that we had to cycle out at least 10 villagers before we were able to have a villager be able to re-move into our island in case they accidentally moved out and we wanted them back. I kind of wonder if a similar situation is put into place here in New Horizons, because if so that would mean that Biff was just unable to enter my queue because *I gave him to a different friend not too long ago since I was just going to take Biff from Village A later down the line. *However! My friend from Village A let Biff move out without my knowledge because I neglected to tell them how much I liked him. This is why I am doing all of this, to try to save Biff!

I always see the term "void" being used when someone moves a villager out without someone adopting them, so I think that's how that term should remain. The "void" should just be the space where villagers go when nobody is able to adopt them. "Move-out queue" seems to be more descriptive and leaves less questions, so if it were up to me that's what would be used. This way, "Move-in queue" would also be able to be used and understood that much easier since it's basically the same concept. Buuuuuuut... at this point I don't even know if these exist for sure at this point.

	Post automatically merged: May 18, 2020



Jared:3 said:


> Honestly the void in this game is way more complicated then in NL it makes me nervous to not have a plot filled immediately because I do visit peoples towns often and I don't want any voided villagers moving into my town so I always have NMT on me before I let a villager move out!


It's probably for the best that you do that. In my case I got incredibly lucky with who moved in with regards to popularity, but I didn't plan on keeping any of them so it went to waste. I'm having trouble moving them out without anyone adopting them, because I don't want to ruin my move-in queue but a lot of these villagers are popular and I would hate for someone to miss out because I wanted to take data "for science". But sacrifices must be made...


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## FraudulentDimetrodon (May 18, 2020)

BipolarBear said:


> Also regarding the 10 villagers that were in your recent move-outs in the previous games, we knew that we had to cycle out at least 10 villagers before we were able to have a villager be able to re-move into our island in case they accidentally moved out and we wanted them back. I kind of wonder if a similar situation is put into place here in New Horizons, because if so that would mean that Biff was just unable to enter my queue because *I gave him to a different friend not too long ago since I was just going to take Biff from Village A later down the line. *However! My friend from Village A let Biff move out without my knowledge because I neglected to tell them how much I liked him. This is why I am doing all of this, to try to save Biff!



Poor Biff. D:

I believe it was actually 16 villagers, but that's not super important. I know that the "villager cycle" doesn't exist in NH in the sense that, say you move out Biff. You can immediately invite Biff back from another island, a NMT island, or with Amiibo. However, it is impossible at first and very unlikely later on to get him back as a pure RNG villager or through the campsite because mechanics. So... I feel like it would be convoluted to exclude Biff just because you've had him already, but... Clearly, many things of these mechanics are convoluted.

My completely uneducated guess is that Biff just got cleared from your friends void (sorry...). But how? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's a mystery.



BipolarBear said:


> I always see the term "void" being used when someone moves a villager out without someone adopting them, so I think that's how that term should remain. The "void" should just be the space where villagers go when nobody is able to adopt them. "Move-out queue" seems to be more descriptive and leaves less questions, so if it were up to me that's what would be used. This way, "Move-in queue" would also be able to be used and understood that much easier since it's basically the same concept. Buuuuuuut... at this point I don't even know if these exist for sure at this point.



Yeah, I definitely think that both queues exist. I think the move-in queue has to exist on principle just based on the villagers 3-5 at the beginning of the game like I mentioned. And the move-out queue seems to exist based on the fact that you got two villagers from Village A. We just don't really know how large this queue can get, how/if it can be cleared, how/if it acts as a queue or stack, like you said, etc. I've definitely seen other folks say that they've had friends who basically got a conga line of voided villagers who moved in one after another.

I mostly just want people to stop saying incorrect things like "TT for 4 days to clear your void," and by void they actually mean the move-in queue. OTL

I guess if you wanted to try to "reinstate" your move-in queue, so to speak... maybe try to find someone who hasn't moved out many villagers and has only just moved out one, or something. Just to see if you can end the pure RNG move-ins. And on that note maybe try to find someone under those exact circumstances who also has had one of your past villagers in their void to see if you can, say, get a voided Static again. Obviously, these are very tall orders, haha. I'm also curious to see if anyone who runs cycling villages (aka someone who has moved out a ton of villagers) have gotten reports of voided villagers from their most recent move-outs. Because having villagers in your void only be the first few villagers you've ever moved out just seems... weird.


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## BipolarBear (May 18, 2020)

FraudulentDimetrodon said:


> Poor Biff. D:
> 
> I believe it was actually 16 villagers, but that's not super important. I know that the "villager cycle" doesn't exist in NH in the sense that, say you move out Biff. You can immediately invite Biff back from another island, a NMT island, or with Amiibo. However, it is impossible at first and very unlikely later on to get him back as a pure RNG villager or through the campsite because mechanics. So... I feel like it would be convoluted to exclude Biff just because you've had him already, but... Clearly, many things of these mechanics are convoluted.
> 
> My completely uneducated guess is that Biff just got cleared from your friends void (sorry...). But how? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's a mystery.



Yeah, I have heard many stories of people finding someone that just moved out of their island on a mystery island so that mechanic is not in NH luckily. Also, when someone had someone that moved out in the past but they tried to go get that villager from someone else in boxes, it works. So the only thing that might be affected by that "villager cycle" might be the random move-ins.



FraudulentDimetrodon said:


> I guess if you wanted to try to "reinstate" your move-in queue, so to speak... maybe try to find someone who hasn't moved out many villagers and has only just moved out one, or something. Just to see if you can end the pure RNG move-ins. And on that note maybe try to find someone under those exact circumstances who also has had one of your past villagers in their void to see if you can, say, get a voided Static again. Obviously, these are very tall orders, haha. I'm also curious to see if anyone who runs cycling villages (aka someone who has moved out a ton of villagers) have gotten reports of voided villagers from their most recent move-outs. Because having villagers in your void only be the first few villagers you've ever moved out just seems... weird.



Often I will have a friend move someone out to make space for someone that I had in boxes so I know that they had someone in their move-out queue, and many of those times I also had someone that moved out previously letting me have a spot in my move-in queue. This is why I am confused that I stopped getting villagers from other people's towns!

I agree that the "move-out" queue should prioritize the most recent move-outs being the first ones that go to another town because it really just makes sense.


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## Cnydaquil (May 18, 2020)

ive actully never had a random move in.


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## brockbrock (May 18, 2020)

This is so interesting. Thanks for your work and for your analysis. It seems the void is much more complicated than it was in New Leaf.


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