Thread by @tanyaxshort

quick little design thread, analyzing probs w/ the Animal Crossing swimming update:
1 - doesn't allow pursuit of it simultaneously w/ other systems
2 - interrupts/devalues another system (fashion/clothes)

Nintendo designers are tops; so here's why this incoherency happened (1/9)

(this is written by someone who has been a live ops/updates designer on 3 different online worlds -- Age of Conan, Secret World, and MUDs... in Age of Conan I led the City Guilds system, on Secret World I led the Albion Theatre)

the experience of AC is normally one of low-stakes busywork -- wander from one mildly profitable activity to another, making incremental but measurable progress towards medium-term goals, and get easily distracted by unpredictable but quickly resolved incidents

swimming interrupts this flow... you can't get distracted by other systems, you Commit to pursuing it and then ONLY pursue it until you decide to be Done. other activities are ALSO boring, but pursuing all at once, your wanderings are expressive & self-directed.

PLUS now your clothes are overwritten by a wetsuit, so your expression in that system is also more limited (or, more clunky, if wands). so now we have new progression, but reduced flow and expression across the board.. and swimming doesn't even interface with FISH!? sigh

I dunno the inside story ofc, but I'm willing to bet that this 'clamped on' feeling (it doesn't interface with other systems, it stands alone in isolation both in physical space and in systemic space) is due to acombo of:
- production constraints/complexity
- marketing needs

to produce a system that allowed simultaneous pursuit with others, AND not break them or override them, it would take SUCH a complex interweaving of variables that it would either need to be extremely minor (think shrub-pruning) or extremely disruptive (think island re-planning)

personally, as a designer and a player, I would prefer many minor-but-interwoven updates (shrub pruning, museum decorating, villager matchmaking, whatever) rather than one big weird clamped-on update, but... those make for bad marketing. nobody wants to report on it.

Swimming meets all the needs of a newsworthy and easily integrated update:
- it's clear when it's enabled (screenshots look different)
- it fulfills a player fantasy (god I love snorkeling)
- it is low-risk to existing islands and the tech infrastructure

alas
FIN