Lack of information intentional?

[SheepMareep]

I am starting to think that nintendo has no intentions of showing us footage from anything past the very beginning stages of the game. So far we have seen some early stage homes but other than that no other buildings or pwp type structures at all.

Since the whole idea around new horizons is to build from the ground up and they're no longer allowing time traveling I wonder if they are intentionally not showing us anything.

Isabelle's role being a mystery, not knowing anything about the shops, etc. Maybe they want us to figure it all out as we play instead of giving us any idea as to what exactly to expect. Especially since tom nook focuses on what you do in the game to determine what upgrades to offer. (Which is also a little mysterious since what upgrades do they have besides shops?)

I hope this isnt completely the case since I want to see what a "finished" island may look like prior to the release but * maybe it would be fun not knowing what exactly to expect going in and being forced to figure it out as we all go. It would also increase activity in the online community even more so which would be fun.

 

[Sweetley]

May I asked where it was stated that they are no longer allowing time traveling?

Otherwise, I think they simply wants to save up the major news and information for a upcoming Direct. I
for myself could imagine a AC Direct getting drop around January to make the hype bigger since it would
be only a few months till release. Could also be that they gonna talk more about NH once Luigi's Mansion
and Pokemon Sword and Shield are out, focusing then more on upcoming 2020 titles.

 

[SheepMareep]

May I asked where it was stated that they are no longer allowing time traveling?

It was in an interview a few months ago regarding the cloud save feature not being implemented to prevent time manipulation. I dont have the exact interview on hand but here is a link to the article about it on animal crossing world Article

 

[Sweetley]

It was in an interview a few months ago regarding the cloud save feature not being implemented to prevent time manipulation. I dont have the exact interview on hand but here is a link to the article about it on animal crossing world Article

Hm, I'm a bit confuse here, maybe I understand something wrong here. It says that "The reason he
provided for the lack of support was 'to avoid manipulating time, which remains one of the founding
concepts of the series'.", wouldn't that mean time traveling is still a thing in the game, hence why
they didn't give it cloud support because of this? Otherwise wouldn't it be pointless if the game
doesn't support cloud saving even if time traveling doesn't work anymore (= no cheating)?

Also, the site says "Note that this is based on a Google translation, so the quote about manipulating
time may not be perfect, but overall confirmation of no cloud saves can be trusted.", so maybe a
misunderstanding?

 

[Fey]

May I asked where it was stated that they are no longer allowing time traveling?

Like the OP said, there was an interview that mentioned efforts to curb time travel. However, it doesn’t necessarily say that time traveling will be impossible—just maybe harder to do than in previous games.

 

[Blue Cup]

The interview that OP mentions was machine translated and is by no means something to be taken as gospel. Cloud Saves have not been enabled due to the player being able to abuse them to clone items and money, not to prevent time travel, which even if the feature is removed in-game it can still be achieved via the Switch settings menu.

And the lack of info is Nintendos advertisement process. Not just with Animal Crossing, but for every major first party title they release. They purposely hold back major features, sometimes even mere weeks before release, before revealing them.

There's nothing out of the ordinary here. It could be March 13th and Nintendo could out of the blue announce a major new feature that was purposely left out of the Animal Crossing Direct.

 

[Ossiran]

That interview didn't say there wouldn't be time travel. It mainly referred to no cloud saves to avoid people using that to travel back to previous saves to duplicate items. They've said nothing on time travel as in changing the date. We'll have to wait for more information.

And yes, the lack of information in general so far is entirely intentional. We'll likely get dumps of information leading up to the game's release. In December or January we'll probably get more information, and then a final Direct in February or early March focusing exclusively on Animal Crossing.

 

[Jason Voorhees]

No TT?

Count me out then.

I literally can't play without time travel.
I work at odd hours and need the flexibility AC has always given, and now nintendo are taking away the things that made this game a possibility for me.

 

[Sweetley]

No TT?

Count me out then.

I literally can't play without time travel.
I work at odd hours and need the flexibility AC has always given, and now nintendo are taking away the things that made this game a possibility for me.

Looks like TT will be a thing, sorry don't worry I guess? After all, I mean, I can't imagine how they
even want to provide that, especially since the Switch's own clock is a thing.

 

[Azrael]

I think they will share more information with us. They don't want to give us all the information up front because then what would they share on future Directs? Honestly it's what a lot of media does. They want to just give you a tease so you keep coming back for more! If they shared all of the NH news on the first Direct would you bother watching the others if you knew there wouldn't be anymore NH news?

It's just marketing.

I wish they would share everything with us! There is so many features that I wan't that they haven't touched on yet! But I know I will just have to wait. *cries*

 

[EpicGamer12]

I think they will share more information with us. They don't want to give us all the information up front because then what would they share on future Directs? Honestly it's what a lot of media does. They want to just give you a tease so you keep coming back for more! If they shared all of the NH news on the first Direct would you bother watching the others if you knew there wouldn't be anymore NH news?

It's just marketing.

I wish they would share everything with us! There is so many features that I wan't that they haven't touched on yet! But I know I will just have to wait. *cries*

Yeah, exactly. It is just marketing. Nintendo is only releasing a specific amount of information because it lets fans think "What if?" while waiting for the game to come out. It gets people hyped. Sometimes people will even convince their friends to buy the game with them before it even comes out. Once time draws nearer to launch, Nintendo will certainly drop more information. If they dropped all of the game's new features and info now, the wait would be rather painful and, eventually, boring. The hype would die and it would hurt sales.

 

[xSuperMario64x]

Oh I know they're withholding information to keep fans on their toes up until release. Heck Pokemon Sword/Shield was revealed back in late February, now it's only a little over a month away and we still don't know what the fully evolved starters look like!

It would be nice if they would release new info on a fairly regular basis though, I get irritated when they release bulks of info only once every month or so. Maybe when it gets closer to the official release date they'll talk and reveal more about it.

 

[KeatAlex]

They really hate sharing information don't they? I mean we haven't even seen isabelle, I know everyones experience will be different but they really aren't showing much at all!

 

[AlyssaAC]

Like a few other people have said, it just how marketing works. They share a little bit at a time to keep the hype going and fans interested. It even keeps those who don't know much about Animal Crossing more interested. I actually don't mind that they are not sharing too much information. It sure keeps me going on waiting for the game to come out. Sometimes patience is hard, but it's all worth it in the end. Trust me. ^-^

 

[Soot Sprite]

They'll be a direct about it, it's just too early. They announced something about animal crossing being in development because Isabelle was in smash and people were going to get pissed. Then they brought it up again briefly because it had been radio silence since the original direct regarding animal crossing and again, people were getting upset.

It's still kinda early and as much as I want to know more too, it probably will be a slow trickle until the game gets closer to release. There's still Luigi's Mansion and Pokemon coming out, and those are two big titles. After they're out we'll probably get some more consistent information.