Rumor: Animal Crossing going the MMO route

by Scott Jon Siegel { Oct 24th 2007 at 11:55AM }

Could Nintendo's Animal Crossing for the Wii take the form of an MMO? Well, of course it could, but will it? Well, we don't really know for sure, but how cool would that be?

Next-Gen joins in the rampant speculation with some tiny tidbits that they feel point to the inevitability of an as-yet unannounced Wii Animal Crossing MMO with social networking elements. We don't exactly share their utter confidence in that point, so either they know something we don't, or they're just heavily invested in the scraps of information collected thus far.

In addition to the fact that Animal Crossing's universe fits well into massively-multiplayer conventions, Next-Gen reminds fans that Katsuya Eguchi -- the man heading up the game's development team -- has previously gone on record expressing a desire to expand connectivity to mobile phones and computers. Again, not the hard-hitting evidence we were hoping for, but we'll honor their enthusiasm for the sake of solidarity (and as an excuse to use the above image).

Tags: animal-crossing, animalcrossing, nintendo, rumors

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jerk Face @ Oct 24th 2007 12:06PM

That would be pretty frickin' cool. It's what Animal Crossing SHOULD be.

Hashbrown_Hunter @ Oct 24th 2007 6:27PM

Yeah it's the one MMO that could actually BEAT WoW in popularity!

wow...i thought i would never speak those words in my life.

REUYL @ Oct 24th 2007 11:13PM

"Non-gamer" Wii crowd + Animal Crossing + MMO = record-breaking profits.

No, seriously. If all the 30-50 year old Wii Sports addicts I know bought this game and told their friends and co-workers about it, it would totally sell more copies than WoW in no time at all- assuming no monthly fees, of course.

Alexisonfire @ Oct 24th 2007 12:08PM

Would be great, but too bad it would never, ever happen.

Nintendo knows full well that the only people that play MMO's are pedophiles. Or any online game for that matter. That is why nintendo gave us crappy online functionality and implemented it only a few games (and poorly, I might add).

I won't doubt that Animal Crossing for the Wii will be online. I just don't expect it to be any better than Wild World. Or, in other words, good.

CaptainAmericaX @ Oct 24th 2007 12:11PM

Are you serious? About the only people who play MMO's are "pedophiles"...

I mean I've never gotten into an MMO (hate WoW) but I've heard about Fable 2 and that seems pretty interesting.

So were you just being sarcastic? Cuz I don't want to join that kinda community.

mr nimblewick (SegaDF - Jogurt Ring) @ Oct 24th 2007 12:14PM

They could still make you enter a friend code to talk to the people online. If you don't have any friends, there are just other people around, catching your fish, scaring away your bugs, chopping down your trees, competing with your interior design.

Psaakyrn @ Oct 24th 2007 12:29PM

Obviously you've not played Toontown Online, a Disney MMO, which coincidently also uses friend codes.

Without friend codes, you can only use preset phrases and names generated from set prefixes and suffixes. With the friend code, you can chat normally and such.

Also, I was already of the opinion that animal crossing was ALREADY an MMO, just a disconnected one. (granted, it does assume whether you would consider Diablo 2 an MMO as well)

Alexisonfire @ Oct 24th 2007 1:30PM

Yes, I was being sarcastic about the pedophile comment. Its just that I find Nintendo's whole stance on Online to be beyond paranoid.

Friend Codes, whether they work in another "MMO" or not, would cripple this game for me.

Psaakyrn @ Oct 24th 2007 8:05PM

And thus my point still remains that you've never played Toontown Online. Friend codes didn't ruin that game, so why should it ruin any other MMO?

Silent Xenocide @ Oct 24th 2007 9:11PM

Because we all know how great a game toontown online was right?

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Oct 24th 2007 12:11PM

A/S/L?

46/m

!!!

I mean...16/f! i hit the wrong key LOLZ!!!1

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Oct 24th 2007 12:13PM

LOL +++

Raikage (NDF - PK THUNDER RING) @ Oct 24th 2007 12:52PM

American Sign Language?...

JK

Almack64 (NOF - Ultrazord) @ Oct 24th 2007 3:53PM

Samfish that was awesome.

Blast Processing Megadrive @ Oct 24th 2007 5:26PM

18/f/Japan

Bigfoot @ Oct 24th 2007 12:15PM

Nintendo also has another game that has perfect MMO elements...

POKEMON!

Geist @ Oct 24th 2007 12:18PM

But you know that some kids that have nothing better to do are always going to be in the position of the elite four.

Sean @ Oct 24th 2007 12:18PM

They need to do a single player full-fledged 3D Pokemon experience first before they do an MMO. No more of this Colliseum or XD rubbish. Make a damn Pokemon game that is just like the Gameboy/DS games but make it 3D and awesome.

Scott Jon Siegel @ Oct 24th 2007 12:27PM

I don't get to say this often enough, but "Bigfoot, I couldn't agree more:"
http://www.numberless.net/blog/2007/06/05/on-diamond-pearl-and-the-theoretical-pokemmo/

Awesome Stuff @ Oct 24th 2007 2:09PM

;__; I've been waiting for something like that for the LONGEST. Pokemon MMO FTFW!!

Srayer @ Oct 24th 2007 4:13PM

"But you know that some kids that have nothing better to do are always going to be in the position of the elite four."

Are you saying that there's something better to do as a kid than play video games? Because if there is, I would really like to hear about it.

REUYL @ Oct 24th 2007 11:06PM

Psssh, asking for a Pokémon MMO is like asking for Sonic in Brawl- it just ain't gonna happen.

Er, wait...

B1gC72 @ Oct 24th 2007 11:42PM

kinda off topic for this post but ive been waiting on that console based Pokemon RPG for forever too. i mean i understand why it hasn't been done before since one of the main points of gameplay is trading, and you couldn't do that on a console. but now with Nintendo's new online movement, we could really see a console, full 3D, Pokemon RPG. i still think it would be a long way off but maybe near the end of the Wii's lifetime we could see that. and it will be f'ing sweet.

Gavin @ Oct 24th 2007 12:16PM

Nintendo has the worst online strategy of this generation, which should come as no surprise to anyone who been paying attention to industry trends since.....duh ALWAYS. They aren't going to figure it out now.

This should be pretty damn obvious at this point.

Anything remotely resembling an Animal Planet MMO would be borked to hell and back with cripling crap such as friend codes, antiquated interfaces, no online chat, etc, etc, etc, etc. It would be an online game from ten years ago.

megaStryke @ Oct 24th 2007 12:22PM

I take it that you are bitter about something?

Gavin @ Oct 24th 2007 12:29PM

Pointing out the obvious makes me bitter?

yeah sure...whatever

WiNG @ Oct 24th 2007 1:08PM

A good pokemon MMO would kill WoW.

No, that's not a joke. I want to see this Full Fledged Pokemon 3D MMO on Wii, with DS compatibility, as well as some single player action.

nerrrrrrd @ Oct 24th 2007 12:16PM

Watch out for Pedo The Penguin!!!!!!

Geist @ Oct 24th 2007 12:33PM

No, beware Pedo(the)Bear!

LaughingTarget @ Oct 24th 2007 12:21PM

Just wait until someone camps the seashells and cuts down all your trees.

Sean @ Oct 24th 2007 12:23PM

And then they steal all your cool neighbors and leave you the shitty ones.

REUYL @ Oct 24th 2007 11:07PM

Tom Nook's Mafia, anyone?

Dio @ Oct 25th 2007 1:35AM

Just wait for the terrorists to crash your gates >:D

Adv2k1 @ Oct 24th 2007 12:35PM

well i do think mmo would be most logical new step for animal crossing I doubt it. Nintendo will probably copy MYSIMS and Animal Crossing DS and call it a day.

Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Oct 24th 2007 4:38PM

....ummm this is nintendo we're talking about. Maybe you're confusing them with EA or Ubisoft?

Skeffington @ Oct 24th 2007 12:59PM

I would agree that Nintendo's online strategy is the worst, but at the same time, it's good enough for me. I really enjoy the simplicity of it. Log in, find some strangers, play, start again. I don't need to chat or see who I am playing against.

My only complaint is that as of yet not enough games are actually using online (I'm looking at you Table Tennis and countless others), but hopefully that will change eventually.

Mrfreezie @ Oct 24th 2007 3:10PM

I just wish Nintendo would throw us a bone and give us SOME info about Animal Crossing Wii.

Mr Khan @ Oct 24th 2007 4:19PM

My guess is that it'll expand on Wild World's connectivity without going full scale MMO

And my guess is that if they did they would just have a foul language filter like PSO had, full chat capabilities, and friend codes to still exchange, but fairly easily exchangible in those limitations

Or they could use the language filter to filter out any 12-digit sequence

BrennaCeDria @ Oct 24th 2007 5:15PM

I'll be all over this as soon as it's out, but my husband and I are still playing GameCube Animal Crossing periodically anyway so I'm not in a rush for it. And at least in WW, you could automatically get the codes of any mutual friends that were in the same village. As long as that ability is still there, it won't be near as bad with the friend codes as it is in every other Nintendo online game.

Psaakyrn @ Oct 24th 2007 8:37PM

If anyone is wondering how an MMO with friend codes could work, I direct you to ToonTown Online http://play.toontown.com/ (there's a 3 day free trial). It's basically a Disney MMO, who's target audience is kids, and thus uses a Friend Code system to prevent irresponsible communication.

Major differences you might note:
1) No more people screaming from 5 maps away.
2) No vulgarities.

Chat system Is similar to CS chat shortcut system, where there are a series of preset phrases you can use, which is usually sufficient for most purposes.

Actual MMO is slightly simplistic and forgiving (because of target audience, and conveniently also eliminates griefing to an extent), but also unique from other MMOs that it's turn based. Uses a pseudo-random mission system for advancement.

B1gC72 @ Oct 24th 2007 11:29PM

i would absolutely love to see this. it lends perfectly to the aspects of the MMO genre. on the other hand, this would never happen with a first party Nintendo game. the potential for kids to talk to, you know, actual people is too must to grasp for that camp. if they did do it, it would probably loose alot of the points that make MMO's, MMO's. oh well, it's nice to dream once in a while.

i would love a Pokemon MMO too, i think somebody already mentioned that.

Deuz Augustine @ Oct 25th 2007 12:21AM

I guess I don't see the big deal about friend codes. Don't you meet most of the people you'd want to play with on forums anyway?

Dio @ Oct 25th 2007 1:37AM

Too bad axes didn't have any effect on other people D:

*chopchopswing*

I hope I'll at least be able to swat people with nets. Yup.

Psaakyrn @ Oct 25th 2007 3:46AM

*points up one post*

Example of MMO which uses Friend Codes.

I give you all a perfect example of an MMO which uses Friend Codes, so please STOP insisting that this is impossible/will be ruined by said Friend Code until you at least try out the 3 day demo. Yes, I know it's a kid's game. No I don't care, because it's actually NOT the traditional WoW gameplay so it's actually probably a fresh gameplay experience for most of you.