.

[Mairen]

I dont think anyone specifically wants "mean" villagers, or emotional abuse from them. What people are really wanting is more depth from the characters. There is a certain satisfaction lost when everyone treats you as their best friend from day one. People want that relationship growing journey.

 

[Corrie]

I feel like it would be hilarious. However, I understand why some people wouldn't want that and I totally respect that. I feel like that kind of dialogue can't be included in games nowadays. Those insults would just not slide lol.

 

[Moritz]

I dont think anyone specifically wants "mean" villagers, or emotional abuse from them. What people are really wanting is more depth from the characters. There is a certain satisfaction lost when everyone treats you as their best friend from day one. People want that relationship growing journey.

I disagree
I've seen a LOT of people say how much they miss it. And even gave screen shots of being insulted lots. Like being called a fat ugly idiot.

They think it's funny.

There are people in this thread saying how great it was.

I can agree that it would be nice to meet a peppy and not be called their bestie after 3 days.

But there really are so many people out there basically wanting bullying to be a feature in the game.

 

[b100ming]

Oh wow I didn’t think these were legit till now. I thought players were making memes to make Tom Nook more evil.

found on a screen(edit. Originally said screw. I was patching)rant article. Which led to a Twitter post.

 

[piichinu]

Can you pm me with them? I want to see what they used to say.

i’ll just put them in this thread in case anyone is curious. they are mean, what I find funny in particular is that it’s cutesy animals being evil for no reason. like it's stupid to see them snap/overreact. plus i never really had any insecurities so i never found irl bullying or this sort of thing hurtful. i can see how it would bother others tho. not my screenshots ofc:

Spoiler: pictured: small animals verbally assaulting the player

sample:

 

[Mairen]

But there really are so many people out there basically wanting bullying to be a feature in the game.

Oh my >.< I admit I skimmed over most of the replies here. That is a bit strange to me and I dont feel outright cruelty really would fit with the laid back vibes of this game.

I personally wouldnt mind if some of the villagers started out a bit cold towards me and I could work to build up their friendship. It would make me very happy to gradually have someone like that warm up to me and become my friend over time. But full out insults would just feel out of place here. I wonder why people want such a thing

 

[Lethalia]

i’ll just put them in this thread in case anyone is curious. they are mean, what I find funny in particular is that it’s cutesy animals being evil for no reason. like it's stupid to see them snap/overreact. plus i never really had any insecurities so i never found irl bullying or this sort of thing hurtful. i can see how it would bother others tho. not my screenshots ofc:

Spoiler: pictured: small animals verbally assaulting the player

View attachment 409228View attachment 409229View attachment 409230View attachment 409231View attachment 409232View attachment 409233View attachment 409234View attachment 409235View attachment 409236View attachment 409237View attachment 409238View attachment 409239View attachment 409240

sample:

Okay Bunnie saying "tee-hee!" after wishing for your house to get destroyed is hilarious

 

[Moritz]

Oh my >.< I admit I skimmed over most of the replies here. That is a bit strange to me and I dont feel outright cruelty really would fit with the laid back vibes of this game.

I personally wouldnt mind if some of the villagers started out a bit cold towards me and I could work to build up their friendship. It would make me very happy to gradually have someone like that warm up to me and become my friend over time. But full out insults would just feel out of place here. I wonder why people want such a thing

I think it would be great if villagers started off with more of a disinterest in you.
Sorta like when you run into your next door neighbour and both have to pretend to care about how the other is doing.
Its far more realistic that way.

But i will be honest and say it does drive me crazy every time I see some say they wish the insults would come back. I play this game as an escape from life. Its been a while since I was at school, but when I was at school I was in hospital for a while after a failed suicide attempt due to bullying.

so I just think of teenaged me seeing things like this

And then I think, not even my video games can give me a space where I can escape being put down.

Here is a one quote from this thread
"I think it's hilarious. I wish they'd make them mean again"

Its just gets to me

 

[Marshmallows]

I wouldn't want the villagers to be mean, either. Direct insults definitely aren't a good idea in a game that a lot of children play. Not good for anyone really... though I can see how some of it is funny if you don't take it personally. It wouldn't affect me and would probably make me laugh, but obviously not everyone feels the same way and it's best it's not in the game.

I'd like more funny dialogue. Not mean. Just maybe a little weird. Also more changes in dialogue between 'just met' and 'best friends' would be nice. They can be insecure or untrusting without being mean.

 

[Dunquixote]

Edit: sorry if this offended anyone. this is just my opinion. it is just a game but i totally understand why people wouldn’t want it.

 

[b100ming]

I wouldn't want the villagers to be mean, either. Direct insults definitely aren't a good idea in a game that a lot of children play. Not good for anyone really... though I can see how some of it is funny if you don't take it personally. It wouldn't affect me and would probably make me laugh, but obviously not everyone feels the same way and it's best it's not in the game.

I'd like more funny dialogue. Not mean. Just maybe a little weird. Also more changes in dialogue between 'just met' and 'best friends' would be nice. They can be insecure or untrusting without being mean.

That screenshot is amazing. I love it.

 

[Beanz]

i always said that i wanted mean villagers back but flo got upset with me after i hit her with a net and it kind of hurt my feelings so i don’t think i can handle this:

 

[Valeris]

I want mean villagers. Not every villager you have should be all sunshine and rainbows; but then that's what makes it rewarding over time. They open up, you get to know them, and if you're patient enough you get what's under the surface. Instant gratification is nice, but it just means more when you've built something with a villager to that extent. I also like the concept of having a rude villager to mix with the nicer ones; kind of like a cranky old man living next door.(I'm looking at you Octavian.)

 

[Red Dust]

I personally think times have changed and the toning down over the years have made sense to a degree. But at the same time I think pandering to "Raymond is my comfort character" meme type sentiments and turning them into friendly bliss zombies is not the solution and would be far more enabling to that level of sensitivity than anything else.

On the one hand it's perfectly acceptable to not want pixels to hurl abuse at you when you're trying to have fun playing a game...but on the other it seems a bit unreasonable to expect nothing but kindness from something so harmless as pixels out of fear of trauma of the occasional snap at you for choosing an option that disagrees with them or whatever.

 

[piichinu]

And then I think, not even my video games can give me a space where I can escape being put down.

Here is a one quote from this thread
"I think it's hilarious. I wish they'd make them mean again"

Its just gets to me

yo, i'm right here. could have quoted me. i think you passive aggressively singling out someone for saying they think it's funny is arguably worse than randomized, de-personalized insults from little animals. especially when said person (me) also said that they understand how it bothers someone. but to each their own.

i also don't appreciate the implication that anyone who thinks it's funny hasn't had experiences with being abused or bullied either. you seem to be painting anyone who thinks it humorous in a bad light for no reason. but idk. lack of self awareness maybe?

 

[theplushfrog]

As someone who played the original gamecube game, yeah the villagers were mean to you sometimes, but usually it was after you were mean to them (hitting them with a net, sending them mean letters, etc), and only a few personalities were just plain mean (and in consequence were less popular with players usually). I was a bullied kid and rarely ever got any mean comments from my villagers beyond the very first day I met them and they were like "uh stop talking to me, weirdo" sort of thing, or if it was a villager I hated and I harassed them to begin with.

However Tom Nook and Resetti were outright mean quite a bit. There's a reason people still don't like either of them, or are very cautious of them. Tom Nook was kind of ridiculous, but Resetti's rants were pretty harsh for a children's game.

I don't blame people for not wanting the original meanness. When I say I miss the meanness, I more mean that I miss the cold/aloofness in NL rather than the outright insults and mean comments of the gamecube ver. The aloof behavior made it more rewarding to me when they would warm up to me, and yeah the original meanness also did that, but looking back, it was a bit too harsh at times.

 

[Moritz]

yo, i'm right here. could have quoted me. i think you passive aggressively singling out someone for saying they think it's funny is arguably worse than randomized, de-personalized insults from little animals. especially when said person (me) also said that they understand how it bothers someone. but to each their own.

i also don't appreciate the implication that anyone who thinks it's funny hasn't had experiences with being abused or bullied either. you seem to be painting anyone who thinks it humorous in a bad light for no reason. but idk. lack of self awareness maybe?

I didnt direct quote you as it wasnt a call out.
It was simply to show that People who wanted it back existed and was prevalent enough to be on this thread.
Beyond that it honestly had nothing to discuss.

It was just saying to some who said that they didn't think anyone wanted it back, that they do

There was nothing passive aggressive about that at all.

And no, its not worse at all.
I can get why it's annoying that I didn't quote you.
But it was not an insult, or anything directed at you at all.
Suggesting so takes away from the real harm things like this do to a person's mental health

 

[VanitasFan26]

Look I know where this argument is going to go, but can I just say one thing. There are those same people who also complained about villagers always being too nice. Let just imagine this. Imagine if New Horizons still had the mean dialogue from the original would it somehow cause a bit of backlash knowing for a fact that the stuff that is said by them is not acceptable by today's standards? Some people may not remember this but Nintendo got rid of Resetti because they got complaints from parents saying how he was so rude to them that it made them cry. So if you understand this from Nintendo's perspective they do not want the villagers to sound too rude so thats why they have been toned down.

I will say this in general there seems to be a unbalance in between nice and mean villagers. Too much of the two is not ideal. There needs to be a proper balance of mean and nice villagers. You sure want them to talk to you all rough, but at the same time you would want them to be nice to you if you just had a bad day in real life and the last thing you don't want is a rude villager to ruin it for you. I was one of the people who used to say that mean villagers should come back because they had personality to them. Now looking back I realized that if that were to happen it would not make much of a difference.

Overall, its a tough thing to even correct. Even if you wanted just mean villagers you have to ask yourself "Do I want to keep wanting villagers say only mean things to be and nothing nice at all" or the other way around where you ask "Do I want to keep wanting villagers to say only nice things to be and no sort of conflict" It is a double edge sword, but personally I think if there was a proper balance of the two then this would not be such an issue.

 

[edsett]

as someone who’s played since the gamecube version, i don’t want the mean villagers back.
not only do they not fit the overall tone of the franchise imo, i feel it would get rather grating after awhile once you laughed at the dialogue a couple dozen of times (as i felt playing the gamecube game) especially with characters you’re supposed to like and want to befriend who i ended up avoiding/disliking.

there’s also many different kinds of people of all ages from all walks of life who play this game and niceness isn’t nearly as divisive as meanness.

that said, making villagers aloof or sassy before they get to know you isn’t so bad. that isn’t even being mean. it’d make the always pleasant personalities like normal/sweet and lazy stand out more too.

 

[Red Dust]

As someone that has experienced bullying I can say villagers saying snappy things to me in no way gives me trauma. At the same time I don't want to invalidate any association other people have with it. It's a difficult one and this really isn't the best platform for the depth this discussion is getting into.

With the up most respect for anyone that does genuinely feel triggered by any form of negative dialogue from this game would you not say wanting to be bubble wrapped to the degree of having 0 tolerance for sass (not unwarranted insults but just sass) from pixelated characters is more of a harmful thing than something beneficial? To me that in itself does not sound like a healthy mentality. Also I personally think it's unfair to make judgements about people's character just because they want some spiced up dialogue to make the game seem more immersive, and I say this as someone who has been branded a social justice warrior by certain demographics of people.

To try and bring this back to Animal Crossing: Some people play this for escapism, others play for immersion. Both can be achieved with the right balance and I believe it's been done before with Wild World.