Making the Most of Animal Crossing without NSO

[KittenNoir]

I really miss being able to just hop on New Leaf and connect to the internet to be able to play with friends. The Nintendo online membership is so annoying having to pay for it. I got it as gift from my parents for xmas but I have some IRL friends who play and can not afford the online membership so have to wait till we see each other to play sitting next to each other. It is just not accessible for all players which makes me sad cause I want my friends and other players to experience it like me.

 

[angelcat621]

I currently have no WiFi at home so I rely on my generous cousin from time to time to use his connection. I have NSO solely for the backup feature right now. I can't do trades though because his WiFi doesn't get along with the Switch too well. It can do updates and backups and that's about it. I really wish there was a way to get the other fruits without trading.

 

[RollingAntony]

NSO is not the best service, but it's fairly cheap (it becomes dirt cheap when you are on a Family plan) and offers enough to become a really good deal. To put into my perspective, I pay the equivalent of USD 12 per year and I have access to online features for all games, the Happy Home Paradise (USD 27), lots of retro games, the 99-style games, soon the new MK8DX courses (USD 27) and sometimes, access to full games like Captain Toad (USD 50). While I'd loved online to keep being free, I understand the world we're living in, so not too fussed about it. However, even if it's cheap, it's not something everyone can afford, so in that sense, it sucks.

For Animal Crossing New Horizons specifically, I think they did a nice job of limiting the things people "miss" if they are not able to pay for NSO. There's less items locked behind trading than NL, and even then, since there's free trials, items are a complete non-issue. Dreams, while cool to do by yourself, can be "replaced" by the way social media works. With minigames being exclusive to NL, visiting each other kind of defaults back to pre-NL era and tons of people already say there's no reason to visit each other so yeah. The only thing that is potentially bad is the custom designs portal, since many people aren't as talented as others, but again, you could potentially download 100 designs on a free trial and be set for life (unless your playstyle involves changing designs every other day- and this is only a true problem if you indeed rely on custom designs, not all people use this feature since it's not obligatory or essential). Oh and the backup feature, which is a bit of a mess by itself. The Nook Link is very, very nice and I love the newspaper, but I don't think it's essential or anything.

I do think the narrative some people keep spreading about how NH is somehow more dependant on online than its predecessors isn't helpful (or completely true), but people like to do that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Having to pay sucks, but I also understand how business works so I can't think of a better solution.

 

[-Mars-]

-

 

[VanitasFan26]

NSO is not the best service, but it's fairly cheap (it becomes dirt cheap when you are on a Family plan) and offers enough to become a really good deal. To put into my perspective, I pay the equivalent of USD 12 per year and I have access to online features for all games, the Happy Home Paradise (USD 27), lots of retro games, the 99-style games, soon the new MK8DX courses (USD 27) and sometimes, access to full games like Captain Toad (USD 50). While I'd loved online to keep being free, I understand the world we're living in, so not too fussed about it. However, even if it's cheap, it's not something everyone can afford, so in that sense, it sucks.

For Animal Crossing New Horizons specifically, I think they did a nice job of limiting the things people "miss" if they are not able to pay for NSO. There's less items locked behind trading than NL, and even then, since there's free trials, items are a complete non-issue. Dreams, while cool to do by yourself, can be "replaced" by the way social media works. With minigames being exclusive to NL, visiting each other kind of defaults back to pre-NL era and tons of people already say there's no reason to visit each other so yeah. The only thing that is potentially bad is the custom designs portal, since many people aren't as talented as others, but again, you could potentially download 100 designs on a free trial and be set for life (unless your playstyle involves changing designs every other day- and this is only a true problem if you indeed rely on custom designs, not all people use this feature since it's not obligatory or essential). Oh and the backup feature, which is a bit of a mess by itself. The Nook Link is very, very nice and I love the newspaper, but I don't think it's essential or anything.

I do think the narrative some people keep spreading about how NH is somehow more dependant on online than its predecessors isn't helpful (or completely true), but people like to do that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Having to pay sucks, but I also understand how business works so I can't think of a better solution.

NSO prevents using features. Like why do I need it to access custom designs? If you have a friend why does it require a NSO just to send letters? Even if you try Local Co-Op that doesn't work either, because you are forced to have an NSO to get the "Best Friends" App. It really makes no sense. While I understand there is no items locked behind NSO that doesn't excuse them for doing that. I mean isn't it odd how you need to have NSO just to have a Dream Address? Remember how back in GameCube you used to have to enter Passwords just to send someone a gift. That never required an Internet connection.

The Airport is lackluster. Again and I hate having to repeat myself again they really should've brought back the mini games that were from New Leaf. All you ever do in online is visit other people. Thats basically it. Its gets boring after a while. I don't mean to sound negative or sound like I'm hating on the game, but ACNH doesn't have the best online play compared to other Nintendo Games.

 

[Shawna]

I really miss being able to just hop on New Leaf and connect to the internet to be able to play with friends. The Nintendo online membership is so annoying having to pay for it. I got it as gift from my parents for xmas but I have some IRL friends who play and can not afford the online membership so have to wait till we see each other to play sitting next to each other. It is just not accessible for all players which makes me sad cause I want my friends and other players to experience it like me.

That’s the other thing too, it can also ruin potential trading with other people. I remember I was planning on doing a trade with someone, I couldn’t because she didn’t have Nintendo Switch Online

 

[Starboard]

I wouldn't have been so mad about them making it paid, if they didn't purposely add things to lock behind it. The other fruits being missing from your island and not having access to most variations of furniture until almost 2 years in was just gross. A lot of the variations I had of furniture just looked weird and if I didn't have my friend I'd have to wait potentially years to get normal ones from RNG. Unless it was those Nook Mile ones which I would never be able to have. Those things have nothing to do with Wifi. There was enough stuff locked behind NSO already.

The free trial you apparently can have is one positive thing about it though. But I didn't actually know about it until more recently. I can imagine the stress I'd feel trying to get everything I needed in that short span of time though lol.

 

[kiwikenobi]

I've only used NSO when Nintendo gives out free weeks of it every now and then through My Nintendo and other places. So I used those weeks as well as I could to get fruits and things from other people, and occasionally villagers when the free weeks lined up well with vacancies in my town. And I downloaded several patterns while I had that available.

My recommendation, as someone else who doesn't want to pay to play online, since it was always free in previous games, is to keep an eye on My Nintendo for free weeks of NSO, and make lists of things that you want to trade from people in advance, then go on a big trading/buying spree during the free week.

I usually play games alone, so the lack of multiplayer doesn't bother me much personally. A week here and there has been plenty for me to do all the trading that I wanted. And then I've spent the rest of my time decorating my island, befriending my villagers, collecting all of the achievement stamps, and just exploring and discovering all of the things that there are in the game on my own. And that's felt like plenty to me.

As for the social part of Animal Crossing, I find that videos and screenshots--which can be uploaded to Twitter directly from the Switch for free--are usually enough to show off my island to other players. And talking to other people about the game is also free, like what we're doing right here on this message board.

 

[Belle T]

Oh, I wasn't aware they did free weeks. Are there certain times of the year where they're more common than others?

 

[Sprigatito]

Really wish NSO was free. It's not very good, to begin with. I have it because I trade a lot on Nookazon and that's how I get a lot of my bells or other stuff I want. Playing without NSO just makes the game feel a bit hollow. Plus, I have a friend who I play with sometimes on there. Honestly, I wouldn't mind NSO at all if it was good. You will never catch me paying for a premium.

 

[Belle T]

Really wish NSO was free. It's not very good, to begin with. I have it because I trade a lot on Nookazon and that's how I get a lot of my bells or other stuff I want. Playing without NSO just makes the game feel a bit hollow. Plus, I have a friend who I play with sometimes on there. Honestly, I wouldn't mind NSO at all if it was good. You will never catch me paying for a premium.

That's really the main reason why I find NSO to not be a very compelling offer. Nintendo's netcode is abysmal and always has been. Even if you had stellar internet connection, playing games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl was a nightmare back in the day in a way that it never was for PlayStation, Xbox, and especially not PC. But while I don't think the fact that it was free made the service beyond criticism (there are plenty of free online games that work much better), it is valid to say that one couldn't realistically expect better for a service that is being run at Nintendo's own expense. But now it costs money and the netcode isn't any better. There is an unused function in Splatoon 2 which checks for Windows 98. That's how bad it is.

The retro game catalogue is also less than stellar to me. Not only did the Wii U (and 3DS) Virtual Console have a much wider selection of games, but I only had to pay once for whichever game I wanted, and the games weren't tied to the internet. That and many of the titles on the service aren't even the definitive ways to play the games in question.

So having features locked behind NSO just seems like a... rather ill-intended decision, I suppose. There's quite a difference between using NSO to enhance the experience and stripping the experience down in order to strong arm people into it. Particularly when those features were available in previous titles. And even worse when online play started out free on Switch.

 

[-Mars-]

That's really the main reason why I find NSO to not be a very compelling offer. Nintendo's netcode is abysmal and always has been. Even if you had stellar internet connection, playing games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl was a nightmare back in the day in a way that it never was for PlayStation, Xbox, and especially not PC. But while I don't think the fact that it was free made the service beyond criticism (there are plenty of free online games that work much better), it is valid to say that one couldn't realistically expect better for a service that is being run at Nintendo's own expense. But now it costs money and the netcode isn't any better. There is an unused function in Splatoon 2 which checks for Windows 98. That's how bad it is.

The retro game catalogue is also less than stellar to me. Not only did the Wii U (and 3DS) Virtual Console have a much wider selection of games, but I only had to pay once for whichever game I wanted, and the games weren't tied to the internet. That and many of the titles on the service aren't even the definitive ways to play the games in question.

So having features locked behind NSO just seems like a... rather ill-intended decision, I suppose. There's quite a difference between using NSO to enhance the experience and stripping the experience down in order to strong arm people into it. Particularly when those features were available in previous titles. And even worse when online play started out free on Switch.

Nintendo wasted time making Super Mario All Stars playable with NSO if you can already play each individual game separately with NSO seriously why did Nintendo even bother waste precious time doing that?

 

[Belle T]

Nintendo wasted time making Super Mario All Stars playable with NSO if you can already play each individual game separately with NSO seriously why did Nintendo even bother waste precious time doing that?

To be fair, All-Stars has slightly different versions of each of the games included within it, namely in the form of graphical updates, which I'm sure many people grew up with. Some of these enhanced versions served as the basis for their later GBA ports. So I don't think All-Stars was a pointless inclusion. But I'd still rather not have my access to these titles tied to my ability to pay for an overpriced internet service to begin with.

 

[Mary]

For me what makes online worthwhile isn't the trading or visiting other players, it's the pattern database. I would hate not being able to download patterns.

I think you could make this part of the challenge though — as long as you're not sharing them anywhere or claiming them as your own, you could try to replicate some of your favorite designs and learn new techniques along the way.