How to stay safe on Wifi. As written by CHIBIPLUTO and ISHOULDBEWORKING on Animal Crossing Community.
Hey all! Just thought I'd toss an alert out there. There are some nasty people out there who will try to wreck your town and ruin all your hard work - and in some cases, you might have to make a new game, or your cart itself might even be completely destroyed beyond repair. This problem has been around since the game first came out, and you need to be aware of it to use Wi-fi safely. But don't panic - read on for an analysis of the issue and what you can do to prevent AC:WW theft and vandalism.
Credit for this guide goes to ISHOULDBEWORKING, and the many other great users who posted with their own tips and techniques for staying safe over Wi-Fi. Thank you, everyone, for your help in creating this guide and your contribution to the community.
The problems
Hacked "seeds" - Danger level: 10. They're an item that people get with a NON-NINTENDO cheating device called Pro Action Replay. It can give you any item in the game, and it isn't necessarily a bad thing. But seeds ARE bad. If someone in your town drops one, it can permanently break your game! If you see something freaky, like a rock in front of your front door or a museum sitting on top of your house, you've been Seeded! DON'T SAVE, and immediately perform option #2 under "The solutions."
Thievery - Danger level: 6. Picking up stuff off the ground when you don't have permission, including flowers and anything buried. Easy to pull off if no one's looking, and unverifiable, but can be easily prevented.
Vandalism (I.E., Tree-chopping and flower-stomping) - Danger level - 4. You hear a lot about Tree-chopping, and if you've worked long and hard on your town it can be devastating. But you'd have to be really distracted, or *completely* panic to have a lot chopped down. On the other hand, nice flower arrangements or rare flowers are easy to kill, and one second of running could cost you a month's worth of waiting for hybrids to grow.
So what do you do to protect yourself from all this scary stuff?
The solutions:
First line of defense: There's a wonderful function built into the game. During Wi-fi, you can press start and hit "Party's over." This will immediately kick everyone except you out of your town. If a visitor has started acting up but hasn't caused much real damage, this will stop them immediately.
Second line of defense: Turning off the power without saving. If your town has already taken more damage than you'd like to bother fixing, something valuable has been stolen, or you've been seeded, just hit the power switch. A mole might come yell at you for not saving, but he sure as heck won't chop any trees or seed you.
If worst comes to worst and you find yourself standing in the middle of a crime-in-progress in your hometown, these are your only recourses. But the prevention is better than the cure, so here's what you can do to stop it from ever happening in the first place.
Jerk-proofing the 'hood
Never accept seeds. Goes without saying for some, but never take these, and if you know someone has them, don't even put them on your roster.
Check ratings. By clicking their name you can look at their profile and see what other users have said about them. If someone has not yet been rated, go ahead and let them in anyway - just follow the precautions listed. Ratings can't always be taken at face value, though - there are some people who will rate inaccurately. For instance, if someone drops a bad word, some people will give them 5 stars for Family Friendly anyway, just because they aren't personally offended by bad words and had fun with the person. Or, there's Revenge Ratings - if Joe schmoe was being a jerk and got kicked out of Suzie's town, or Suzie gave him an honest bad rating, or even if Suzie said something nasty to his friend, Joe might lie and make up stories about how evil Suzie was, and how she hacks seeds and swore on his bulletin board and stuck a museum on his town gate so he had to buy a new cartridge. So Joe gives Suzie a one-star rating and RUINS her reputation just to soothe his ego. DON'T DO THIS. It's not nice. Think about what you're doing - people can never erase these ratings and it can make others not want to Wi-fi with them. Be mature, bite the bullet and rate people honestly. When about to wi-fi with someone, you can usually tell if their bad rating is a revenge rating in two ways:
- Do they have only a few bad ratings saying they did bad things, along with many more saying they're good clean players?
- Check the person who gave them the bad rating. Did the person you're considering Wi-fi-ing with give the rater a bad rating? If so, SOMEONE here has rated for revenge.
Keep your roster clean. As soon as you open your gates, anyone on your roster can come into your town. So if you're having someone over, DON'T HAVE ANYONE SUSPICIOUS ON YOUR ROSTER! If someone missed your first meeting, delete them UNTIL they can meet you again. If someone has some bad ratings, don't have them on your roster all the time. While you wi-fi, only have people you already know and trust on your roster. Which leads us to:
Don't accept random FCs. Think about it. Someone you've never spoken to has just requested your FC. Who are they? Why did they choose you? Do you even have anything in common? Reject it! Everyone who sends you a request is NOT your friend, and don't be afraid that you'll seem rude. Only have someone on your list if you've spoken to them over the boards and they seem to be trustworthy. If you start to feel suspicious of them for any reason, don't let them in.
Clean up. Don't have anything laying around that someone can steal. This includes burying valuables. Buy a wardrobe and you can hold 90 items out of sight. If you've run out of space there, put 'em in letters and save them at the post office, or make a second character so you can hold ANOTHER 90 items. Don't leave anything valuable where a thief can get to it. It's your choice whether this includes Hybrids or not - for some, putting their flowers away might defeat the purpose of having them. If you feel this way, you can probably fall back on the other methods and still stay safe, but dropped items are much harder to keep track of.
If someone asks to save, wait. Often, if someone has stolen something or seeded, they'll ask you to save so the damage will be permanent. Before you save, run inside and come back out: this will "activate" any seeds that have been dropped, making them visible. Now run to every square inch of your town and check it out. If something is gone or if something is in a weird place, turn off the power.
The good news
The good news is, the problem isn't nearly as common as it seems. I did a quick overview of 100 users' ratings, and here's what I found:
75% had five stars
14% had four stars
1% had three stars
0% had 2 stars
0% had 1 star
10% were unrated
Also:
0% had been chopping trees
0% had seeded
2% had stolen
3% of people appeared to have gotten Revenge Ratings.
"Good" players: 95%
What this DOESN'T mean:
- That nobody chops trees. Nobody in the 100 users I checked chops trees, but it can happen. However, because I didn't find anyone out of 100 users, it's PROBABLY fewer than one percent of the total population.
- That nobody seeds. See above.
- That 2% of the population steals, therefore 2% of the population gets stolen from. Those 2% can afflict everyone they Wi-fi with, and if those 2 thieves out of those 100 people each wi-fi with 25 different people, they have hit 50% of that piece of the population.
- That you shouldn't protect your town.
What it DOES mean:
- The person you are about to wi-fi with should be considerent innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.
- You don't have to be paranoid. With the proper precautions, you can protect your town. There's a fine line between worrying yourself sick and being aware. You can be safe, but still relax and have fun!
