I have played a lot of all the animal crossings, but I don’t see getting much play out of the patch. I’d love to see them fundamentally reinvent it. AC used to be a hell of a lot weirder and more mysterious. Modern entries (plus experience) means I have difficulty not seeing the spreadsheet. Villagers used to feel more alive and differentiated. They’ve put so much work into proving that Nook (and Resetti) aren’t antagonists when really that sort of thing is crucial to making a place feel real, with stakes.
So adding yet another interior decoration space where you match the tags to requirements to get vendor currency to get exclusive interior decoration items doesn’t feel like will draw me back in. I’d like to see them add secrets, an enemy, a mystery, some kind of narrative friction if not frisson, something to bring a bit more meaning and contrast into the game.
@Lizuka This is actually because trademarks are only adjectives, not nouns. If you look at a few food products or whatever carefully you’ll see “Brand” written underneath stuff to protect them. It comes down to this: if I make a thing and call it “a Bonzolator” then you can also make a Bonzolator. It’s just descriptive, what it is, even if it’s a new term. But if I called it the Bonzolator-brand device, then I can register that and sue you if you make one. For the same reason, LEGO will insist that it’s LEGO bricks not LEGOs, Google will shout at you if you say you’re Googling for something, and you “unlock iPhone”, you don’t “unlock your iPhone”. Basically, the more lawyers you have in your communication stack, the pickier the output is going to be, and Nintendo has a lot of lawyers.
@Bluelink45 No worries! It's makes sense for folks to think that, having a big number go up is pretty effective marketing. I think it's nice Nintendo gives us insight into their process instead of buying into it.
It's pretty interesting if you compare it to Microsoft Windows. They put Windows 7 and Windows 8 on the boxes, which does what you'd expect, communicating the significance (and cash money cost) of the updates. But to developers, Windows 7 calls itself 6.1, and Windows 8 calls itself 6.2, because theoretically, everything made for Vista (6.0) should run on Windows 7 and 8.
(The 'theoretically' there is doing a lot of work, but that's their intention at least, and if it isn't fully compatible they are making the promise that it's a bug)
Since Switch OS updates are, mercifully, free, and essentially mandatory, Nintendo is free to just use helpful real numbers, not fake marketing numbers, because all their users are going to upgrade anyway.
@Bluelink45 It's worth noting that they probably use semantic versioning, like most software developers try to use.
In semantic versioning, a major version increment, like they've done here, means it's a 'breaking change', which means that software that depends on the OS working exactly as as previous version did will have to be updated. That could be a new feature, but it's often a change in how something works. In this case, it's probably something related to security.
Minor version increments, like from 10.0.0 to 10.1.0, means a feature has been added in a way that won't break pre-existing software. Pure patch releases, like 10.0.0 to 10.0.1, means that only bugs were fixed.
It's not marketing-friendly, but it's essential for other developers to know how much work they're in for to support integrations to a new version.
Comments 4
Re: Opinion: Animal Crossing On Switch 2 Has Me Equal Parts Buzzing And Baffled
I have played a lot of all the animal crossings, but I don’t see getting much play out of the patch. I’d love to see them fundamentally reinvent it. AC used to be a hell of a lot weirder and more mysterious. Modern entries (plus experience) means I have difficulty not seeing the spreadsheet. Villagers used to feel more alive and differentiated. They’ve put so much work into proving that Nook (and Resetti) aren’t antagonists when really that sort of thing is crucial to making a place feel real, with stakes.
So adding yet another interior decoration space where you match the tags to requirements to get vendor currency to get exclusive interior decoration items doesn’t feel like will draw me back in. I’d like to see them add secrets, an enemy, a mystery, some kind of narrative friction if not frisson, something to bring a bit more meaning and contrast into the game.
Re: Rosalina's Storybook From Super Mario Galaxy Goes On Sale This November
@Lizuka This is actually because trademarks are only adjectives, not nouns. If you look at a few food products or whatever carefully you’ll see “Brand” written underneath stuff to protect them. It comes down to this: if I make a thing and call it “a Bonzolator” then you can also make a Bonzolator. It’s just descriptive, what it is, even if it’s a new term. But if I called it the Bonzolator-brand device, then I can register that and sue you if you make one. For the same reason, LEGO will insist that it’s LEGO bricks not LEGOs, Google will shout at you if you say you’re Googling for something, and you “unlock iPhone”, you don’t “unlock your iPhone”. Basically, the more lawyers you have in your communication stack, the pickier the output is going to be, and Nintendo has a lot of lawyers.
Re: Nintendo Switch System Update 16.0.0 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@Bluelink45 No worries! It's makes sense for folks to think that, having a big number go up is pretty effective marketing. I think it's nice Nintendo gives us insight into their process instead of buying into it.
It's pretty interesting if you compare it to Microsoft Windows. They put Windows 7 and Windows 8 on the boxes, which does what you'd expect, communicating the significance (and cash money cost) of the updates. But to developers, Windows 7 calls itself 6.1, and Windows 8 calls itself 6.2, because theoretically, everything made for Vista (6.0) should run on Windows 7 and 8.
(The 'theoretically' there is doing a lot of work, but that's their intention at least, and if it isn't fully compatible they are making the promise that it's a bug)
Since Switch OS updates are, mercifully, free, and essentially mandatory, Nintendo is free to just use helpful real numbers, not fake marketing numbers, because all their users are going to upgrade anyway.
Re: Nintendo Switch System Update 16.0.0 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@Bluelink45 It's worth noting that they probably use semantic versioning, like most software developers try to use.
In semantic versioning, a major version increment, like they've done here, means it's a 'breaking change', which means that software that depends on the OS working exactly as as previous version did will have to be updated. That could be a new feature, but it's often a change in how something works. In this case, it's probably something related to security.
Minor version increments, like from 10.0.0 to 10.1.0, means a feature has been added in a way that won't break pre-existing software. Pure patch releases, like 10.0.0 to 10.0.1, means that only bugs were fixed.
It's not marketing-friendly, but it's essential for other developers to know how much work they're in for to support integrations to a new version.