Has anyone else noticed... *Minor spoilers*

[Tymon]

Has anyone else noticed that when you actually finish the community center, it actually screws you, the player over? Clint no longer works on fridays for example, and joja mart closes entirely. So, sure while pierre's is open 7 days a week now, he's only open 9-5, joja mart is open from 8 am to 11 pm, so you lose a LOT of time that you could have done 'emergency shopping' if needby after normal hours. Plus, by the time you have enough stuff to complete the community center, odds are you're rolling in seeds, or have ways to get seeds on your own without buying them, rendering pierre's shop relatively useless other than quick selling things. (Which is a moot point since you can sell stuff anyway with the shipping box) Meanwhile clint's being closed on a day of the week means no processing geodes which is almost always a useful thing regardless of game progress, no ability to opt to upgrade tools if you haven't hit iiridium quality for everything yet, and also losing the ability to instant sell minerals and gems and such. So, the tradeoff seems really, really lousy to me.So at the end of the day you end up losing more than you actually gain.

[Tymon]

red255 a écrit :

You've completed the community center.

means you've completed the mine carts.

means you can warp over to clint from the mines in 15 minutes. break anything you want.

he's not open stick the geodes in a chest in the entrance to the mines, break them when he is open.

Not sure why its so urgent to break your geodes than Clint can't get a day off.

Compare that to Joja route. You get all that. Plus clint doesn't take a day off, plus joja mart stays open.Furthermore you do not have to COMPLETE the community center completely to get all the things you mentioned as well. you can leave the notice board stuff open indefinitely since the only benefit to that is a lousy friendship boost. So, pretty much everything you said doesn't even apply.

[Nakos]

The point is that there are supposed to be both pros and ♥♥♥♥ to the two choices.

If you complete the Community Center, everyone is happy, but Sam and Shane lose their jobs. So ... it's mixed either way.

Personally, (given the background of the player as a former cubicle slave at Joja headquarters), I say screw Joja, they're evil. If the game LET me, I'd give Sam and Shane jobs on my farm, it isn't like I couldn't use the extra farmhands by that point, and I've also got plenty of money by that point, but ... you can't, so c'est la vie.

[Tymon]

Nakos a écrit :

The point is that there are supposed to be both pros and ♥♥♥♥ to the two choices.

If you complete the Community Center, everyone is happy, but Sam and Shane lose their jobs. So ... it's mixed either way.

Personally, (given the background of the player as a former cubicle slave at Joja headquarters), I say screw Joja, they're evil. If the game LET me, I'd give Sam and Shane jobs on my farm, it isn't like I couldn't use the extra farmhands by that point, and I've also got plenty of money by that point, but ... you can't, so c'est la vie.

Actually my point from the start was that it screws you the player over. NPCs lives improving really aren't even part of the point here.There are more ♥♥♥♥ to the player for finishing the community center than there are pros. Look at it pragmatically, not with emotions blinding your logic and you'll see what I'm talking about.

[Tymon]

red255 a écrit :

No, the point is you are missing the point.

yes town OUTPUT is down. its not about the overall output of the town thats Joja mentality.

its about worth, happiness, family, etc. Clint only really does work for YOU and does he really need to be open more than 4 days week to service you?

So yeah if you only value money you could consider Joja better but if you value people CC is better.

which is the whole point. learn to bend.

Again, you're clearly missing what I was pointing out. I was speaking from a gameplay mechanics perspective. You're just throwing in a bunch of completely unrelated nonsense about ethics and feelings, when I'm speaking in a purely pragmatic sense. The fact is... you complete the community center: You gain: 1 more day a week that pierres is open. You lose: 1 day of clints being open and joja mart entirely. Ergo you lose more than you gain if you left the community center entirely unfinished or went the joja route.

[protëin]

Tymon a écrit :

Again, you're clearly missing what I was pointing out.

We get your point, you just want to ignore the rest of the equation when the game shoved it into your face multiple times that it's part of it.
Yes, Joja route supposed to make life easier at the cost of the sentimental value of the CC.
Yes, CC route supposed bring back, well, the CC itself, at the cost of having an "easier and cheaper life".

No, you're not the only who noticed it. Literally everyone got the point the moment the choice was presented to them. Yes, the CC route makes life a bit harder (arguably), but it shouldn't come to you as a surprise.

Having Clint a day off once a week isn't that much of a drawback IMO. There's like 6 other days in a week.

[feralgal]

I agree with OP. It makes it more difficult to upgrade your tools. It's already a PITA bc of the hours Clint is open and bc you have to leave the tool with him and he doesn't even lend you a "starter" tool or let you buy a duplicate.

I understand they do that for gameplay reasons and that it's not realistic. If it were a real shop, he'd love to sell or rent you another tool to use while he upgrades yours. The whole shop is very gamey - why would you have a shop that only upgrades a handful of tools and cracks geodes? How did he survive before you moved to Pelican Town? None of it makes sense. So I think it's fair to analyze what happens when you open the community center from a gameplay perspective.

I was bummed after I opened the CC. I did not fully upgrade most of my tools. I went the mining route and opened the Skull Caverns early in the game. That meant that I didn't have time to mess with Clint and his late opening/early closing (from the POV of someone trying to get to the desert as soon as Pam arrived at the bus stop). Now I could do it bc I spend more time with wine and the crystalarium than anything but it's rarely convenient, especially if I can't drop off anything on Wednesday (bc I can't pick it up on Friday) or Fridays. Ugh. I'll probably tough it out with my gold level tools (except the pickaxe) until I finish the game. I don't care about geodes. I have a few hundred of them in a box near Clint's shop so that will take some time to process those. But I understand that ppl play the game differently and if you want to process them ASAP, having Clint be open one fewer day would be a downside.

[Tymon]

protëin a écrit :

We get your point, you just want to ignore the rest of the equation when the game shoved it into your face multiple times that it's part of it.

Except I'm not 'ignoring' anything. I'm talking about specifically the impact it has on the player. Where do you get that the actual impact it has on the village is even part of the topic? It's like I'm trying to discuss Abigail and people are bringing up Penny.

[feralgal]

If you're looking at it from a story POV, since you're Clint's only customer, you should be able to drop off your tools with him whenever you want, even in the middle of the night. Surely he'd accommodate you since you're his best customer. He wouldn't need to hang around his shop all day, just post his cell phone number on his shop door and let his customers give him a call. It would actually be easier for him too.

You should be able to hand him your geodes whenever you see him, whether in his shop, the community center, or the Saloon and pick them up at his shop at your convenience.

I don't think it makes any sense to analyze Clint's shop from a story perspective. Very little about his shop makes sense except from a gameplay perspective. But if you're going to, given how much work you (and the junimos) put into fixing the CC, shouldn't Clint and Pierre (and Carolyn, why doesn't she ever work in the store?) be more willing to accommodate your legitimate concerns? Are they selfish bc they're enjoying the CC but aren't making it easier on you. What kind of thanks is that?

[The Y'All Of Us]

This is a roleplaying game, the 'moral and ethic' implications are part of the intended design. Yes, from a pragmatic standpoint, you do get some minor inconveniences to yourself, the player, when you take the extra effort to complete the Community Center. The drawbacks and limitations it imposes are meant to make the game more challenging, restrict your access to the rewards, and push you to explore a greater amount of what the game has to offer- including the themes of it's narrative and commentary.

JojaMart is 'easy mode', and caters to your convenience and pragmatism- all you need is to know how to make money at the rate you want to be making money, and nothing else. By strengthening Joja's influence over Pelican Town, you wind up supporting the mindset of corporate control- longer workweeks, more labor, "spend more get the same" results. For you, the player, this has no "drawbacks", since the game doesn't change aside from you getting access to the Milestone Rewards on the Joja path.

The point of the game's narrative is to see the result of these choices and decide for yourself what you value- the grind and the money, or the relationships and sense of community involvement (spiced up with miscellaneous trinkets for completing the CC's rooms in addition to the MIlestone rewards). The result of this mentality has a profound impact on your gameplay- you can see the differences in it expressed in the pacing and aesthetic development of the game files of people with either mentality. That's my comment on the 'ethical' argument going on in this thread, so let's move on to the pragmatic side of things-

The inconveniences you experience are a drop in the bucket compared to what a Joja File mindset gives you. Trying to focus on the skull caverns with maximum efficiency- leaving as soon as the bus is available (incluing the extra time you can get by blocking Pam's path as she leaves her trailer so her walk speed gets increased) will /not/ actually prevent you from accessing Clint's shop, or Pierre's, or Joja Mart if it's still open- they all open up at least an hour before Pam leaves for her shift at Ten AM. You can either ride your horse, ride the minecarts, or use a speed boosting item to get yourself into town and access the shops with plenty of time to spare to make it to Pam's trailer and force her to walk faster /so you still leave early to the Cavern/.

Processing Geodes is one of the least prfitable things you can do in the game, and only really serves to complete the Museum Collection's mineral list- after you've gotten at least one of everything it's far, far more efficient to chuck your minerals into crystalariums (Which you're swimming in if you're playing a Joja Mindset file anyways) if you care about having those minerals on hand- you only even need one crystalarium (Which you can get as a reward from the CC without ever crafting or unlocking the recipe) to build up a stockpile of the minerals you want since you can always change what you're producing after a few days. When it comes to the Tool Upgrades- that's a matter of responsible scheduling no matter what path you take. You need to let go of your tools regardless, and even when Clint is out of his shop on Fridays after the CC bis complete, that Friday still counts as a workday for him tools-wise, so you can drop it off on Thursday before he closes shop, and pick it back up on Saturday when he opens.


I put this section into quotes here because it's the most complex and potentially contentious part of my reply-

Tymon a écrit :

So, sure while pierre's is open 7 days a week now, he's only open 9-5, joja mart is open from 8 am to 11 pm, so you lose a LOT of time that you could have done 'emergency shopping' if needby after normal hours. Plus, by the time you have enough stuff to complete the community center, odds are you're rolling in seeds, or have ways to get seeds on your own without buying them, rendering pierre's shop relatively useless other than quick selling things. (Which is a moot point since you can sell stuff anyway with the shipping box)

You nullified your own point about wanting the emergency shopping done. By the time you're at the 'endgame' of a Community Center run it's midsummer of Year 2, and yes, you do have the ability to produce your own seeds. This, coupled with the fact that Joja Mart has A: A smaller selection of things to buy than Pierre's in the first place, making you miss out on Fruit Tree Saplings and the Year 2 crop selection. B: No ability to quickly sell things to it, which as you point out you can already sell through the box /anyways/, and C: A price hike on their inventory (Unless you're a member, The /only/ exception being that Sunflower Seeds are 75g cheaper there) as well as only selling things you can get from other sources all throughout the game- makes the Joja Mart basically useless by the end of your first gameyear anyway, regardless of it's opening hours.

Pierre's shop, being the only place in the game to get Frut Tree Saplings, Year 2 crops, and giving you the opportunity to buy your goods back if you sell something that later shows up in a quest (Jodi's Cauliflower, Demetrius' Melon, Caroline's Pumpkin, Marnie's Amaranth, Kent's Starfruit) you don't have to wait a full year to complete those quests since you can go buy the crop back, makes it a far from 'useless' shop regardless of only being open for business for eight hours a day (Commenting on the 'ethical' ramifications of this, Pierre is pulling between eight and sixteen hours of 'Overtime' on a standardized workweek just to scrape by, and Joja Co. is forcing it's cashiers, and Shane, to work more than that for what the villager dialogue suggests are poverty wages).

Finishing off my reply, I'm going to retouch on the actual impact this choice has on you, the player:

Joja Mart closes, Clint takes one day off, sometimes. You don't permanently lose anything, but you do have to be a little bit more careful in your scheduling to accomodate when you're dropping off your tools /if/ you haven't finished them off by the time you finish CC, and your basic seed purchases /if/ you still need to buy them instead of produce your own. In exchange you've gotten to explore more of the game, gotten a guranteed three heart with every villager from the Bulletin Board bundle, gotten a free Crytalarium, Seed Maker, Charcoal furnace, and more, and you've saved yourself 95,000 gold, plus the membership fee bringing it up to an even 100,000 gold more that you spend if you go through Joja.

The ultimate 'Pro' to Joja, though? You can make the 140,000 gold you need to complete it in /your first spring/ if you know what you're doing and have the fighting spirit of Caliborn on an adrenaline high.

[Ice Dagger]

I have only been in Wal Mart...er I mean Joja Mart 3 times in my entire play time. I am going the CC route so needless to say Death to Capitalism!

[protëin]

Tymon a écrit :

Except I'm not 'ignoring' anything. I'm talking about specifically the impact it has on the player. Where do you get that the actual impact it has on the village is even part of the topic?

Because you seem to judge the whole CC route based on part of its rewards. Yes, the CC route doesn't bring as many gameplay improvements as the Joja route, but as I said, it becomes clear that it was never the intention by the time the choices are presented to you. It was never implied otherwise. You can't compare the rewards based only on gameplay improvements when both promised completely different things. One promised oranges, the other promised apples.
Well, I mean, you could compare them, there's just really no point to it.
You also overexaggerate your points and they go all over the place. First you claim that quick selling at Pierre is pointless (by the time you finish the CC) because you can ship items in your bin anyway, yet in your very next sentence you claim that losing the opportunity to quicksell on fridays at Clint is bad.

Again, I agree, doing the Joja route is easier and brings more gameplay improvements. The game literally shoves that into your face in the first hour. There's nothing to notice about this.

[Shordanq]

Sorry, but what's the point of this discussion? You asked if people noticed they "lost" Clint on Fridays and Joja. Everyone noticed. And what else?

What I see is that you want everyone to agree that this is a loss but it depends on the point of view of who is playing. In my opinion, from the point of view of history, recovering CC is a 'good ending'. For you, staying with Joja is a good ending (yeah, I know, from the perspective of gameplay - Everybody understood this). And that's all.

The End?

[Tymon]

Gyoru a écrit :

Sorry, but what's the point of this discussion? You asked if people noticed they "lost" Clint on Fridays and Joja. Everyone noticed. And what else?

What I see is that you want everyone to agree that this is a loss but it depends on the point of view of who is playing. In my opinion, from the point of view of history, recovering CC is a 'good ending'. For you, staying with Joja is a good ending (yeah, I know, from the perspective of gameplay - Everybody understood this). And that's all.

The End?

At this point you're right. Especially since literally everyone is going off topic. LIke I mentioned earlier, I wanted to discuss abigail and everyone's bringing up penny. That said, no 'everyone' hasn't noticed. Which is the whole reason I made the post. I unfortunately didn't realize that it'd be kind of screwing me over when I finished it, so it's pretty annoying. A number of other people didn't realize it'd happen either. Sooo... yeah. The strawman arguments are getting old anyway. I'm not judging anything, just pointing out that from a gameplay perspective the community center is a disadvantage to the player. That was LITERALLY the entire point of the post, and everyone else is being argumentative about it and bringing up unrelated things.

[Tymon]

feralgal a écrit :

If you're looking at it from a story POV, since you're Clint's only customer, you should be able to drop off your tools with him whenever you want, even in the middle of the night. Surely he'd accommodate you since you're his best customer. He wouldn't need to hang around his shop all day, just post his cell phone number on his shop door and let his customers give him a call. It would actually be easier for him too.

You should be able to hand him your geodes whenever you see him, whether in his shop, the community center, or the Saloon and pick them up at his shop at your convenience.

I don't think it makes any sense to analyze Clint's shop from a story perspective. Very little about his shop makes sense except from a gameplay perspective. But if you're going to, given how much work you (and the junimos) put into fixing the CC, shouldn't Clint and Pierre (and Carolyn, why doesn't she ever work in the store?) be more willing to accommodate your legitimate concerns? Are they selfish bc they're enjoying the CC but aren't making it easier on you. What kind of thanks is that?

This is a very good point to counter the people using 'villagers matter' comments. Like hello, I've been literally nominated your town's hero, the highest award you can give me. But, hey, keeping your shop open 10 minutes past closing time so I can sell you the crops I had today is clearly too much to ask of you even in though in any sort of actual social/business situation it is highly likely they'd do that even for a NORMAL customer let alone the legendary town hero that saved their community. *shrugs* Anyway, I think it's safe to say there's no point in debating further since this wasn't intended to be a debate in the first place, just stating how I find that when you go that route you're actually hurting yourself as the player. Also, from an RPG perspective... hate to say it but the villagers are pretty awful and one sided in how they operate/are coded. EG: Shane promises to quit drinking, next day he's in the pub...drinking. The fact that literally none of the events and the things that happen within them change ANYTHING with the character's behavior? Yeah, that's a fail if you're going to go off this game being an RPG.

[vvnfs]

red255 a écrit :

yes but the community center is about the.. community.

so it shouldn't be a discussion about you, and how selfish you are. and how its not good for your selfish interests.

^ this though. if you dont care abt the community then go joja lol

im only annoyed that barely anyone else uses the community centre after i spent 2 years restoring it lol