NatsumiSummer
She/Her/hers
Someone (not gonna name who it was) commented on one of my recent posts, and said they think Nintendo is waiting to see how badly people want certain features, and will then lock those features behind a paywall as paid DLC. I for one disagree. All of the previous features from say New Leaf, can easily be added to New Horizons WITHOUT having to create stuff from the ground up.
Little head's up... I know very little about game development/3D modeling, but I am going off of what I know, and what I heard of before hand.
Let's start with Tortimer's Island... how can they go about programming/developing that for New Horizons?
Okay... to start off I need to remind you guys of this old app that sadly no one can download anymore... the Animal Crossing Plaza app that was released for a short bit on the Nintendo Wii U.
All Nintendo has to do is take the character assests that they used for that app for Kapp'n, Tortimer, and even Kapp'n's family... and slightly rework them for New Horizons (shouldn't be TOO hard)... then take the models they have for the NMT islands, and remodel that model to be Tortimer's Island. After that they just then have to insert the dialogue into the game's code (which tbh is the easier part compared to upscaling and reworking 3D meshes. The team they have working on each of the updates can probably do that within 2 months maybe 3.
Now let's talk about Brewster's cafe... They still have the model/mesh for Brewster from that same Plaza app, and not only that.. but they also have the model/map information for The Roost from City Folk/Wild World (both used the same design for The Roost btw), and The Roost from New Leaf, so they just have to work with one of those two as a blueprint, and then rework what they have to work with New Horizons. Probably can be done in about 2 months (shorter than Tortimer's Island as they don't need to do so much work.)
As you can probably imagine a lot of the work for the stuff they know people want already has a great chunk of the work done. The only reason why we haven't gotten say, Tortimer's Island yet is probably because they are holding out till Summer 2021 that way they can still have something awesome for people to look forward to at that time.
Now for The Roost/Brewster... I'd like to say, "Oh he is probably coming in the late November update!" I'm not. I am going to bet he WAS planned to come sooner, but the entire pandamic caused them to delay him further (they probably planned to have Jingle and Franklin get their own separate updates, but had to mesh them into one update because they wanted to get all of the holidays out this year.) We'll probably get Brewster/The Roost come either January or February. I'd imagine February as he did serve a purpose for Valentine's Day in New Leaf/City Folk. (yes he did the same thing he did in New Leaf in City Folk... https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Valentine's_Day ) So he is probably going to be the special character that they tie to the "Valentine's Day Update." But he won't just visit once... they'll probably allow us to add him to our islands sometime in Late January/Early February (by add I mean by adding his cafe to the basement of the Museum).
So as you can see.. they literally have 0 reason to just go, "Oh welp time for paid DLC!" with this game yet.
Now for the argument I know will come up at some point... "But Smash has paid DLC, oh and the same devs even forced us to pay for the Octo Expansion DLC in Splatoon 2"
Well for one both of those had to have stuff worked on FROM LITERAL SCRATCH! I dare you to find the same assets that were used in Octo Expansion in the base game without the DLC installed. Let's start with the subway/train you travel on... that was developed from SCRATCH! No similar model existed in the base game, so they had to do extra work similar to what they had to do when they first developed the game.
Now the fighters/stages from Smash Bros. Ultimate's DLC... Licensing fees and development fees for the characters/stages. All of the characters so far were developed from the ground up for Smash. (For example Banjo-Kazooie isn't using a retextured model of another character... it was a character the dev team worked hard to create from scratch), and not only that they have to pay Microsoft for the rights to use that character in the game. Same with Steve from Minecraft, then there is Joker from Persona, and even Hero from Dragon Quest, and then Terry... all of those characters required Nintendo to make deals with the developers that own said characters, and Nintendo has to pay said companies royalties for using those characters. So the money for royalties has to come from somewhere... where could that come from..? OH RIGHT! The $5.99/per character or $20 for the Fighters Pass.
And now let's move to Breath of the Wild... that game got paid DLC you say... again stuff that had to be made from the ground up. The Champion's Ballad stuff wasn't in the game before, and the cutscenes had to be recorded, and the voice actors had to be paid to do their jobs. Not only that, but the Trail of the Sword and Master Mode both contain stuff that weren't in the base game before release. The floating platforms in Master Mode had to programed and designed from the ground up to work. They had to stress test and work the physics for those. Then the Trail of the Sword has the room with the Monks in it where you get the powered up Master Sword. Nothing like that existed in the base game before the release of the game. Also the Master Cycle Zero had to designed from scratch. Again that DLC cost $20, and I am willing to be a huge chunk of that $20 went to paying the voice actors, and then what was left over went to paying the developers for making that DLC.
So again I don't think there is any reason to believe Nintendo will just magically lock the following as paid DLC; The Roost, Tortimer's Island, Shop upgrades, and new shops. They literally have everything already pre-coded/designed that would make things easier.
And if you think back to BEFORE Luna was added back into ACNH... I predicted almost exactly how she would work in New Horizons. https://www.belltreeforums.com/threads/how-the-dream-suite-could-work-in-acnh.556295/post-9254832
So I think I am on the right track in regards to how Nintendo is handling/making the updates, especially with their dev teams working from home right now.
But then again I could be wrong... what do you guys think?
Little head's up... I know very little about game development/3D modeling, but I am going off of what I know, and what I heard of before hand.
Let's start with Tortimer's Island... how can they go about programming/developing that for New Horizons?
Okay... to start off I need to remind you guys of this old app that sadly no one can download anymore... the Animal Crossing Plaza app that was released for a short bit on the Nintendo Wii U.
All Nintendo has to do is take the character assests that they used for that app for Kapp'n, Tortimer, and even Kapp'n's family... and slightly rework them for New Horizons (shouldn't be TOO hard)... then take the models they have for the NMT islands, and remodel that model to be Tortimer's Island. After that they just then have to insert the dialogue into the game's code (which tbh is the easier part compared to upscaling and reworking 3D meshes. The team they have working on each of the updates can probably do that within 2 months maybe 3.
Now let's talk about Brewster's cafe... They still have the model/mesh for Brewster from that same Plaza app, and not only that.. but they also have the model/map information for The Roost from City Folk/Wild World (both used the same design for The Roost btw), and The Roost from New Leaf, so they just have to work with one of those two as a blueprint, and then rework what they have to work with New Horizons. Probably can be done in about 2 months (shorter than Tortimer's Island as they don't need to do so much work.)
As you can probably imagine a lot of the work for the stuff they know people want already has a great chunk of the work done. The only reason why we haven't gotten say, Tortimer's Island yet is probably because they are holding out till Summer 2021 that way they can still have something awesome for people to look forward to at that time.
Now for The Roost/Brewster... I'd like to say, "Oh he is probably coming in the late November update!" I'm not. I am going to bet he WAS planned to come sooner, but the entire pandamic caused them to delay him further (they probably planned to have Jingle and Franklin get their own separate updates, but had to mesh them into one update because they wanted to get all of the holidays out this year.) We'll probably get Brewster/The Roost come either January or February. I'd imagine February as he did serve a purpose for Valentine's Day in New Leaf/City Folk. (yes he did the same thing he did in New Leaf in City Folk... https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Valentine's_Day ) So he is probably going to be the special character that they tie to the "Valentine's Day Update." But he won't just visit once... they'll probably allow us to add him to our islands sometime in Late January/Early February (by add I mean by adding his cafe to the basement of the Museum).
So as you can see.. they literally have 0 reason to just go, "Oh welp time for paid DLC!" with this game yet.
Now for the argument I know will come up at some point... "But Smash has paid DLC, oh and the same devs even forced us to pay for the Octo Expansion DLC in Splatoon 2"
Well for one both of those had to have stuff worked on FROM LITERAL SCRATCH! I dare you to find the same assets that were used in Octo Expansion in the base game without the DLC installed. Let's start with the subway/train you travel on... that was developed from SCRATCH! No similar model existed in the base game, so they had to do extra work similar to what they had to do when they first developed the game.
Now the fighters/stages from Smash Bros. Ultimate's DLC... Licensing fees and development fees for the characters/stages. All of the characters so far were developed from the ground up for Smash. (For example Banjo-Kazooie isn't using a retextured model of another character... it was a character the dev team worked hard to create from scratch), and not only that they have to pay Microsoft for the rights to use that character in the game. Same with Steve from Minecraft, then there is Joker from Persona, and even Hero from Dragon Quest, and then Terry... all of those characters required Nintendo to make deals with the developers that own said characters, and Nintendo has to pay said companies royalties for using those characters. So the money for royalties has to come from somewhere... where could that come from..? OH RIGHT! The $5.99/per character or $20 for the Fighters Pass.
And now let's move to Breath of the Wild... that game got paid DLC you say... again stuff that had to be made from the ground up. The Champion's Ballad stuff wasn't in the game before, and the cutscenes had to be recorded, and the voice actors had to be paid to do their jobs. Not only that, but the Trail of the Sword and Master Mode both contain stuff that weren't in the base game before release. The floating platforms in Master Mode had to programed and designed from the ground up to work. They had to stress test and work the physics for those. Then the Trail of the Sword has the room with the Monks in it where you get the powered up Master Sword. Nothing like that existed in the base game before the release of the game. Also the Master Cycle Zero had to designed from scratch. Again that DLC cost $20, and I am willing to be a huge chunk of that $20 went to paying the voice actors, and then what was left over went to paying the developers for making that DLC.
So again I don't think there is any reason to believe Nintendo will just magically lock the following as paid DLC; The Roost, Tortimer's Island, Shop upgrades, and new shops. They literally have everything already pre-coded/designed that would make things easier.
And if you think back to BEFORE Luna was added back into ACNH... I predicted almost exactly how she would work in New Horizons. https://www.belltreeforums.com/threads/how-the-dream-suite-could-work-in-acnh.556295/post-9254832
So I think I am on the right track in regards to how Nintendo is handling/making the updates, especially with their dev teams working from home right now.
But then again I could be wrong... what do you guys think?
