All things must pass, even great games. I've played AC only sparingly for several months now. I'm still missing an obnoxious list of catalog items and I suppose I'll have to make peace with that... but the long honeymoon is over. I've seen every special event, I have all the NES games Nintendo is willing to give out, I'm positive I got more out of this game than 95% of everybody else who owns it simply because of the real-time == real-life attitude I had when I played it.
The last couple times I visited Adamsvil was because we have a couple friends who just got into the game, so we all travelled to see each others' villages. Two of these friends happen to be under the age of 13; I always like to see kids embrace video games. Not just simply playing them or hunting down cheat codes... I mean embracing them. Talking about the characters outside the gameworld, sending artwork to Nintendo Power, and, in Animal Crossing's case, making rock-solid appointments to return to the game on Saturday night because K.K. is in town.
And about my stalk market study: I now believe that the notion that your town will always hit on certain numbers is crap. It's random. If you play it often enough with multiple characters and multiple towns, you'll come out ahead... but anyone who tells you there's a pattern or a science to it is just parroting internet heresay. I have the notes to prove that I missed on X one week, and then hit on X three months later.
Another revision: my treatise on how and why animals move. It has occurred to me that I overlooked one important variable: the receiving town's beauty level. If the receiving town is in bad shape (as defined by the Wishing Well) then it is less likely that tagalong animals will move in. This seems awfully obvious to me now, but since my town was rated Perfect for almost forever, I tended to forget about that and so I didn't mention it in my big theory.
Does this mean the end to the Animal Crossing Log? Perhaps. At least, I doubt I'll have the gumption for semi-monthly updates. But I am very excited for Animal Crossing DS. Several questions immediately come to mind: Will you be able to carry over some aspect(s) of your existing character / town / items? How will it take advantage of the DS's online capabilities? And, most importantly, will it actually ever come out? Not to suck the life out of you, but it's entirely likely that AC DS will fizzle out and remain an E3 '04 tech demo.
But if it does come out, I guarantee I will be first in line, and the Animal Crossing Log will live again. See you then. Maybe even in person.
