The first time I invited strangers to me Animal Crossing: New Horizons island, I created a large fenced area to keep mischievous strangers out of my flower fields and orchards. I’d heard horror stories, of trampled flowers and looted islands, so I painstakingly created a path from the airport to Nook’s Cranny, a pain in the ass considering how far my Nook’s Cranny is from the airport.
I had been burned at the Stalk Market before, but mostly because of my own mistakes. The damage that an internet stranger could do to my digital island is minimal, all things considered, but I spent dozens of hours here. It was not a risk big enough to no I post my Dodo code publicly on Twitter, I ran a lot of bells that day, but it was a risk, actually.
Since then, I have taken my hoods out of the Stalk market. For that, I am grateful, because there is apparently a new threat to die-hard turnip traders: theft at sea, enabled by the new summer update that added swimming. Theoretically, it works like this: A player flies to an island to sell his turnips. Some turnip dealers charge admission to their islands; players who want to avoid this can jump off the pier and swim to other entrance to the island, sell your turnips without paying, then calmly leave the island. Mischief makers can trample on flowers and shake trees in areas where the island’s owner did not intend to go to strangers, perhaps sneaking up on another player’s tip or other objects dropped on the ground. Any item that falls on the ground is at risk.
Essentially, it makes existing fences on the island useless, unless you’re literally fencing the entire perimeter of the beach. A Reddit user posted about the risk on the Animal Crossing subreddit over the weekend. I haven’t seen a lot of people on social media being scammed this way, but there are some users on the Reddit thread who said the robbery at sea happened to them; A couple of people noted that it’s less about the risk of damage to their island, but more about the betrayal of trust.
Inviting strangers to your island can be a small experience, but apparently it can also bring out the worst in people. The risk of theft at sea is real.
