Petition for AC:NH game save backup

[Blue Cup]

Has anyone started a petition for SD card saves?

I don't want to save a game I would be playing with my wife only in our house, by having to pay for an internet service to save the game. It's not right.

I'm angry that nintendo hasn't offered SD card backup as now I won't ever be purchasing ACNH or a switch.

That is something that most definitely will not happen. That is not a feature on the Switch at all and is highly unlikely to ever support it as it's require a slight overhaul of the Switch OS, plus Nintendo's own fear of homebrew being enabled somehow.

The cloud save issue is something we stand a chance, albeit a small one, to change.

 

[Jason Voorhees]

It?s disappointing but I?m not overly worried about it. Even if something did happen to my save, there?s something inspiring about starting a new file anyway.

EDIT: Signed anyway.

See if you feel that way after a year or two when your switch breaks and you've lost your town.

Animal crossing is therapeutic for many people, myself included.
If I lost everything I wouldn't be saying "Meh.." and just shrugging it off.

- - - Post Merge - - -

That is something that most definitely will not happen. That is not a feature on the Switch at all and is highly unlikely to ever support it as it's require a slight overhaul of the Switch OS, plus Nintendo's own fear of homebrew being enabled somehow.

The cloud save issue is something we stand a chance, albeit a small one, to change.

Then I'll just have to say goodbye to AC, change games and consoles.

 

[Blue Cup]

Well I mean, that's entirely your call and I am by no means one of any authority to try and persuade you otherwise.

I don't disagree with any of your points about the game being therapeutic and taking a lot of work, but in the end it's just that: A video game.

 

[Tasty]

This is a great idea! We have a letter from the petition that gets sent to Nintendo every time someone signs. It goes like this:

-snip-

I don't know where I could publish an open letter, we're thinking of physically emailing this letter to NoA!

Thank you! I'm glad you like the idea! Anything to help.

I love the text in the petition, probably will use something very close to it!

Btw who is "we?" I'm excited there's more people part of this effort.

I also encourage everyone who is worried about this to contact Nintendo and let them know, it could be via the Web Chat or on the phone. People can also reply to Isabelle or Nintendo's twitter.

If you know of a place where I can publish this letter, let me know! If you can think of changes to make to it, also let me know :3 thanks for your idea!

I've bought the domain name cloudyhorizons.org for this! (Along with cloudyhorizons.com to forward on to the .org name.)

There's a couple other domains I thought might be cool, but "Cloudy Horizons" references:

- Cloud saves
- New Horizons (without using the full subtitle, aka avoiding trademark issues!)
- Something not being right ("Cloudy" as in "Uh oh, looks cloudy")

I imagine it being a single-page website with the letter as the main content, then in the footer have big links to the Petition, E3 trailer, and maybe a link to somehow send a physical letter to the developers. (Possibly a PDF template where the person can sign their name?)

I also think it's important we provide translations of the open letter in various languages (saying we represent AC fans around the world), but especially English and Japanese. I think the only way to affect change is letting the actual Nintendo EPD team in Japan know about this issue, and getting through to them will be difficult for sure!

I also have more ideas! I think we should do a big thing at least once a month (eventually working up to things like a charity livestream, etc.) But those are more out-there.

I really care passionately about this issue, and just want to help without stepping on toes. So let me know if this all sounds OK!

 

[lexy_]

I really hope Nintendo will change their mind about the cloud saving, I saw lot of people crying when a villager left, can you imagine a entirely town be gone forever ? I will be devastated for sure if I lost my town because we put a lot of feeling/work/time inside that game....that game helps me in so many ways IRL. I don't want to loose everything. that game is special, at least for me and I want to preserve it as long as I can.

 

[will.]

it's interesting that nintendo hasn't said anything new about nh or cloud saves in general. maybe in the next direct they'll change their minds...

 

[Tasty]

it's interesting that nintendo hasn't said anything new about nh or cloud saves in general. maybe in the next direct they'll change their minds...

If they decide to make a change, I don't expect to get an update about it until December/January... Two months to listen to feedback and decide to make a change seems too short for a normal video game development schedule.

Would love to be proven wrong! But hoping people don't get their hopes up for too much too soon.

 

[Blue Cup]

Plus you have to give them time to figure out how to implement it while still avoiding their, or rather the directors, irrational fear of cheating.

They may not implement it in a way that most might expect. They could perhaps only backup certain aspects of your save data, such as the town/island development and layout, villagers and personal belongings like letters and patterns.

They could also have it where certain items, say the throne or large amounts of stacked bells as examples, get flagged and thus aren't included in a backup regardless of whether it's in inventory or sitting around town.

 

[Tasty]

Plus you have to give them time to figure out how to implement it while still avoiding their, or rather the directors, irrational fear of cheating.

They may not implement it in a way that most might expect. They could perhaps only backup certain aspects of your save data, such as the town/island development and layout, villagers and personal belongings like letters and patterns.

They could also have it where certain items, say the throne or large amounts of stacked bells as examples, get flagged and thus aren't included in a backup regardless of whether it's in inventory or sitting around town.

Exactly. It might be some kind of weird, manual, partial-backup option if they agree to do it, but at this point anything is better than nothing.

 

[will.]

i heard someone say they won't be purchasing new horizons strictly because it doesn't have cloud saves the other day and i just want to say thats the silliest thing ive ever heard.

to not do something for the fear of losing it is dumb. it's like not getting in a car because you're afraid you'll crash.
you get in the car, and if you crash, you deal with it. i think if i lost my new horizons save was lost id be upset but it wouldn't launch me into a depression or make me boycott nintendo or anything. i still think saves are a good idea but also.. it's not that serious.

i contributed to the discussion previously and my stance was that we should be all for cloud saves, but now i think it's gonna be fine if we don't have them. i don't think we should be all that upset with nintendo if they decide to not do cloud saves after all; platoon 2 is doing just fine without it; many people have dedicated hundreds of hours to that and continue to do so.

so idk lol

 

[Jason Voorhees]

I don't think it's dumb at all.

I'm tired of trying to justify why it would suck to lose a town.

People work. They have kids. They don't have time to redo months or years of work, and why should anyone have to?

Let us save to the damn SD card at the very least!

 

[Sweetley]

That argument from Nintendo that New Horizons gets no Cloud Save support because of cheating is
dumb. Like come on, they treat us as if we are all "cheaters". Besides, what's even the point to offer
Cloud Saving if a bunch of the big Switch titles doesn't even get supported anyway? If Nintendo has
a fear that people would use the Cloud Saving for "cheating" then they shouldn't offering it at all or
may find a good solution for their problem.

platoon 2 is doing just fine without it; many people have dedicated hundreds of hours to that and continue to do so.

Just because they spent hundreds of hours into the game doesn't mean they don't have any fear to
lose their progress. I see people who love to play Splatoon but still wishes Nintendo would give it a
Cloud Save support, even 2 years later after the game came out. Some people may can deal with
a lost save file, others however not.

 

[will.]

Just because they spent hundreds of hours into the game doesn't mean they don't have any fear to
lose their progress. I see people who love to play Splatoon but still wishes Nintendo would give it a
Cloud Save support, even 2 years later after the game came out. Some people may can deal with
a lost save file, others however not.

good point!! that was directed towards people who are refusing to play new horizons because there isn't a cloud save option. of coure i want cloud saves but its unreasonable to not play it simply because there isn't safety garaunteed.

 

[SnowGarden]

i heard someone say they won't be purchasing new horizons strictly because it doesn't have cloud saves the other day and i just want to say thats the silliest thing ive ever heard.

to not do something for the fear of losing it is dumb. it's like not getting in a car because you're afraid you'll crash.
you get in the car, and if you crash, you deal with it. i think if i lost my new horizons save was lost id be upset but it wouldn't launch me into a depression or make me boycott nintendo or anything. i still think saves are a good idea but also.. it's not that serious.

i contributed to the discussion previously and my stance was that we should be all for cloud saves, but now i think it's gonna be fine if we don't have them. i don't think we should be all that upset with nintendo if they decide to not do cloud saves after all; platoon 2 is doing just fine without it; many people have dedicated hundreds of hours to that and continue to do so.

so idk lol

That car analogy is flawed. Refusing to buy this game because it doesn't have cloud saves is like someone refusing to buy a car because it doesn't come with industry standard safety equipment such as airbags and seatbelts. These features are meant to protect us if there is a crash and are expected now. Especially galling when Nintendo is expecting players to spring for a subscription service for online that is supposed to include cloud saves as a feature. We are paying for that feature. If someone wanted to buy and get in a car with no seatbelts, it would be their choice, and I really hope nothing bad would happen to them. I wouldn't look down on anyone who refused to get in that car though.

Losing nearly 2000 hours worth of work (my og New Leaf town has 1700+ hours of playtime for example) in a town isn't life and death, but it would be a pretty lousy player experience. I've read multiple stories of people who have had corrupted data and lost their towns or other games. What seems to happen across the board was that the affected players lost their desire to play the game afterwards and simply stopped. If I am buying a Switch specifically for this game, that's a particularly unpleasant prospect.

I've had Terraria data corrupted by game updates for my PSVita, and the cloud save kept me from having to start from scratch. It was daunting enough just having to redo the couple of boss battles and the hours of item gathering, building, and crafting that I lost from not having backed up as recently as I should have. It took a couple months before I worked myself up to playing those parts over.

There is so much about New Horizons that looks awesome. There's also some aspects that I am on the fence about and awaiting more information regarding. The cloud save feature is something that is important to me, and I don't see myself buying this game without some kind of save backup. As far as I'm concerned it's unreasonable for Nintendo to charge me for cloud saves and not give me what I am paying for.

 

[pensenaute]

Thank you! I'm glad you like the idea! Anything to help.

I love the text in the petition, probably will use something very close to it!

Btw who is "we?" I'm excited there's more people part of this effort.



I've bought the domain name cloudyhorizons.org for this! (Along with cloudyhorizons.com to forward on to the .org name.)

There's a couple other domains I thought might be cool, but "Cloudy Horizons" references:

- Cloud saves
- New Horizons (without using the full subtitle, aka avoiding trademark issues!)
- Something not being right ("Cloudy" as in "Uh oh, looks cloudy")

I imagine it being a single-page website with the letter as the main content, then in the footer have big links to the Petition, E3 trailer, and maybe a link to somehow send a physical letter to the developers. (Possibly a PDF template where the person can sign their name?)

I also think it's important we provide translations of the open letter in various languages (saying we represent AC fans around the world), but especially English and Japanese. I think the only way to affect change is letting the actual Nintendo EPD team in Japan know about this issue, and getting through to them will be difficult for sure!

I also have more ideas! I think we should do a big thing at least once a month (eventually working up to things like a charity livestream, etc.) But those are more out-there.

I really care passionately about this issue, and just want to help without stepping on toes. So let me know if this all sounds OK!

I'M SO SORRY FOR REPLYING LATE! I really apologize! This sounds fantastic, you'll be happy to know that our letter to Nintendo has been translated into German, Japanese, Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese! Not bad, right? so far, we've shared them on twitter tagging the corresponding Nintendo/Isabelle twitter for that country.

When I say ?we? in regards to those working on the petition stuff, it's myself (hi, I'm Lucia ), Julie (@loonep) and Alex from the US !

- - - Post Merge - - -

If they decide to make a change, I don't expect to get an update about it until December/January... Two months to listen to feedback and decide to make a change seems too short for a normal video game development schedule.

Would love to be proven wrong! But hoping people don't get their hopes up for too much too soon.

I hope so too, and this is what Spawnwave said as well! Crossing our fingers

- - - Post Merge - - -

That car analogy is flawed. Refusing to buy this game because it doesn't have cloud saves is like someone refusing to buy a car because it doesn't come with industry standard safety equipment such as airbags and seatbelts. These features are meant to protect us if there is a crash and are expected now. Especially galling when Nintendo is expecting players to spring for a subscription service for online that is supposed to include cloud saves as a feature. We are paying for that feature. If someone wanted to buy and get in a car with no seatbelts, it would be their choice, and I really hope nothing bad would happen to them. I wouldn't look down on anyone who refused to get in that car though.

Losing nearly 2000 hours worth of work (my og New Leaf town has 1700+ hours of playtime for example) in a town isn't life and death, but it would be a pretty lousy player experience. I've read multiple stories of people who have had corrupted data and lost their towns or other games. What seems to happen across the board was that the affected players lost their desire to play the game afterwards and simply stopped. If I am buying a Switch specifically for this game, that's a particularly unpleasant prospect.

I've had Terraria data corrupted by game updates for my PSVita, and the cloud save kept me from having to start from scratch. It was daunting enough just having to redo the couple of boss battles and the hours of item gathering, building, and crafting that I lost from not having backed up as recently as I should have. It took a couple months before I worked myself up to playing those parts over.

There is so much about New Horizons that looks awesome. There's also some aspects that I am on the fence about and awaiting more information regarding. The cloud save feature is something that is important to me, and I don't see myself buying this game without some kind of save backup. As far as I'm concerned it's unreasonable for Nintendo to charge me for cloud saves and not give me what I am paying for.

I agree with this, I think it's not our place to tell someone else that their concerns for backup is silly... some people just get more emotionally involved than others, some people might not want their hours of gameplay to be wasted. You mentioned how you almost lost your Terraria data but I'm guessing if you had to start over, you'd just have to do everything again. In Animal Crossing this isn't possible, everything is so absolutely personalized that getting the same town again is impossible. I really hope they'll offer us some kind of total or partial backup, for the sake of everyone