Twitch Plays Pokemon

[Lady Kuno]

I managed to stay up and watch it and it was glorious.

[Raves]

[Stealthy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNCh...ature=youtu.be

[Tyranidos]

I see a lot of complaints on reddit about how democracy mode killed the charm of the whole thing. Did you guys think it was necessary/a good feature or that it ruined the experience?

[Raves]

Democracy was a needed thing to prevent the run from dying eternally in the Rocket HQ and Safari Zone. Silph Co isn't as bad as you think.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Tyranidos

I see a lot of complaints on reddit about how democracy mode killed the charm of the whole thing. Did you guys think it was necessary/a good feature or that it ruined the experience?

Ironic though it may be, people felt a greater sense of accomplishment when they felt they had less control over the outcome.

I could leave it at that one sentence, but I'll offer an example from last night: many players lashed out at requests to vote in Democracy so that they could organize the team better. (E.g. putting Zapdos at the front for Lorelei, putting Omastar at the front for Bruno.) These actions ended up playing out in the end through the hand of anarchy, but I think the anarchists derived little satisfaction from it because they recognized that these outcomes were achieved not through uncoordinated efforts but through highly coordinated efforts on Reddit and in the Twitch chat room. Such a high level of coordination is, for all intents and purposes, the same as Democracy Mode. The only difference is that in Democracy Mode, thirty people working together can drown out the mewling voices of hundreds of morons; whereas in Anarchy Mode, in order to coordinate your efforts like this, you have to get 50%+ of the button mashers to be working as a team. What's funny is that this level of player coordination amidst the chaos was what many originally envisioned as the end result of this experiment, so you would think that they would be happy to have finally pulled it off in the final hours before beating the game! But I think that because of the strong resemblance that coordinated anarchy bears to democracy, it removed most of the satisfaction.

Me personally, I quit caring about the experiment as an experiment the moment he interfered with their attempts to give water to Saffron City's guard. I was able to overlook his interference with Pidgeotto's evolution (something he still denies was interference *shrug*) but his interference with the start menu when they were down to their final bottle of water to give the Saffron gate guard was preeeeeeeeeeeeetty obvious. So if you ask me whether I think Democracy Mode killed the experiment or not, I'd probably say it killed the experiment as I originally envisioned it but gave birth to a new one of its own. But if you ask me whether I think Democracy Mode killed my ability to enjoy the fanart that the community produces, no, I've been enjoying the best submissions now as much as I did before Democracy Mode was instituted.

[Mercutio]

For people like me ho valued the social experiment of it and didn't actually give a fuck about any of the pokémon or memes or anything like that, democracy immediately made it a waste of time. But for people who aren't social scientists and political anoraks, I imagine it remained pretty excellent regardless.

EDIT: Actually, the first change in the terms of it killed any value, but democracy is when I stopped paying attention.

[Sneaze]

I literally stopped watching as soon as they implemented the Democracy/Anarchy scale. I could look past the interfering if the mod would openly state that they did interfere, but the inclusion of the Democracy feature instantly removed any of my motivation to actually watch the stream, at least up until they got to the E4 and refused to use said feature.

[phoopes]

I would've appreciated the Democracy feature more if there was a stipulation that it could only be used once we were stuck in one area for a certain amount of time, like 24 hours or something. Exception would be Safari Zone so we didn't get ourselves in an unwinnable situation. Overall I didn't mind it, but I would've preferred full-on Anarchy most of the time.

[DaveTheFishGuy]

I still don't know the difference.

[Muyotwo]

Originally Posted by DaveTheFishGuy

I still don't know the difference.

During anarchy, anyone who puts in a command- Left, a, start and what have you- has the command carried out in the game.
During democracy it's majority rules- whatever command is selected by the most viewers in 20 seconds is carried out by Red.

[Talon87]

Which starter would you like them to get?

I am hoping that they get Chikorita for their starter. It's going to make things hard mode for them to an extent (given her lackluster offensive pool and attack stats), but she learns a lot of good supporting moves for the team. If, in their chaos, they can lead with her, set up screens / Safeguard / what have you, and then get her the hell out of there, she could easily be the team MVP despite being the lowest dealer of damage.

Also I like Chikorita.

Cyndaquil would be my second pick. He's Easy Mode for GSC, but they could honestly use the help. Quilava is neat and Typhlosion is quite neat. I didn't much care for the line originally but after having picked one twice (two playthroughs of HeartGold) I probably wouldn't have it any other way.

Totodile's line is my least favorite of the three Johto starter lines. I'm also not a big fan of Feraligatr's overall shittiness in Gen 2 where his high Attack and low Special Attack do him no favors with moves that are primarily Special (the Water STAB moves, Bite, Crunch). He's nice for averting the same fate that befell TPP1 (i.e. the Eevee/Lapras fiasco that resulted from hysteria over getting a Surfmon) but aside from that ehhhhhhhhh ... :\ Apologies to Totodile line fans. He's just not for me.

[Red Panda]

I'm personally hoping for a Cyndaquil because of Abby's premature release in the first run. Not much of a reason but I'd like to see them fully evolved a starter, and since they released Abby (Charmeleon) last time I feel that they should try and evolved fire again. Though Chikorita would be helpful because in the event that it's released, not all that much is lost offensive-wise, since one supporting pokemon can't exactly carry the entire team to the effect that an offensive one can (Pidgeot). Early on I'm also hoping that they manage to get a Mareep because electric is really helpful early on (Falkner, though I forget if Mareep can be obtained before then, and against Bugsy's scyther)

[Stealthy]

I'm more interested to see if the stream can resist falling prey to old ruts if we end up with a Pidgey and/or Rattata in early routes. Instant proclamations of Bird Jesus 2 and Jay Leno 2 would get old (though, since I think Red will be modded to have the TPPRed crew, a Bird Jesus vs Bird Jesus 2 fight would be great). It'd be nice if we got a Hoothoot/Sentret instead, but fuck knows what the clock will give us.

[KamenAeons]

Originally Posted by Stealthy

I'm more interested to see if the stream can resist falling prey to old ruts if we end up with a Pidgey and/or Rattata in early routes. Instant proclamations of Bird Jesus 2 and Jay Leno 2 would get old (though, since I think Red will be modded to have the TPPRed crew, a Bird Jesus vs Bird Jesus 2 fight would be great). It'd be nice if we got a Hoothoot/Sentret instead, but fuck knows what the clock will give us.

I like Hoothoot. If they go ahead and go for a run with Chikorita, Hoothoot could become the Timekeeper.

Gold/Crys vs. TPPRed and his crew will be something fun to watch.
If they can get to Mt. Silver with more than 3 Pokemon still battle ready.

They should bring back Flareon, Flareon was cool despite being labelled as evil.
To be honest, the only meme that I liked about TPP was Lord Helix. I hated nearly everything else. >_>"

[Emi]

Which starter would you want the Twitch crew to start with?

From a gameplay point of view, there is practically no reason why you should go with anything other than Typhlosion. It's a pretty great Pokemon in-game, since it has a nice Speed and a great Sp.Atk, not to mention what is typically a great attacking type in-game. It also has a nice coverage move in Thunder Punch (this IS assuming that he will have the TM long enough to teach him it).

Meganium isn't the black sheep this Gen, but its definitely not that good in-game. Grass as an attacking type tends to suck serious bullocks. It's level-up movepool is great however for a Gen II movepool, learning some serious shiz like Synthesis and the screens. Sadly, if they want it to be at all offensive, they either need to breed it Swords Dance...sorry I'm laughing too hard at the thought of that, or they need to teach it Curse.

Feraligatr truthfully may be the worst out of the bunch but its not a bad Pokemon itself. 79 base Special Attack isn't the greatest, but its still meatier than Snorlax's special stat in RBY and it made use out of that (granted, it need Amnesia to do so). Sadly, there really isn't much he can do without a little help from the Egg Moves (since that gives him Rock Slide), so he is the worst choice out of the bunch.

Now if we are speaking looks wise and more subjective opinions? Typhlosion? Get yo ass outta here. I'd honestly have a hard time deciding between Meganium and Feraligatr. Meganium and Feraligatr both take the cake as my favorite Grass and Water starter each and they both vie for my favorite starter of all time, so its really hard to pick one or the other. Feraligatr would get rid of the Surf controversy, and also allow for possible Ice coverage (remember, Ice Beam was not a TM this generation, Ice Punch was, which meant that a lot of Water types ran try on Ice coverage in Gen II), but on the other hand is a base 79 Special Attack even going to do that much damage to a Dragon?

Feraligatr Ice Punch vs. Dragonite: 190-224 (49.3 - 58.1%) -- 99% chance to 2HKO

Ehh seems not. Maybe its more worth it to find another Water-typed biped? :/

[Lady Kuno]

[Rangeet]

Now it is the turn of AJDNNWW to hear the voices. He is a boy, and it is 8 AM as of this post in the game. His trusty companion is a Totodile!

[phoopes]

Lol at how people were saying Totodile was the worst choice for GSC... and they picked Totodile. Didn't even give it a name yet!

[Lanturn]

Glad they didn't get Meganium. First two gym would've been hell.

And Pryce, if they don't have a grass move that is .=.

[Emi]

Originally Posted by phoopes

Lol at how people were saying Totodile was the worst choice for GSC... and they picked Totodile. Didn't even give it a name yet!

They obviously went for the sexy choice.

[Concept]

If it comes to it, Feraligatr can learn every HM except Fly and Flash, neither of which are particularly necessary. So that's something at least; if they keep it, they'll always have an option for any necessary HM.

[Lady Kuno]

It can't learn all the water HMs in gen2.

[rotomotorz]

I'm waiting for them to get a Noctowl and name it Moses Bird

[Talon87]

Totodile.

Bullshit hero name.

*sigh*

Also, the new setup for Democracy mode seems very ineffective. It appears to kick in once every hour; players are given the option to vote for anarchy during it, as before; but now, if enough votes are cast for anarchy in any given round that it wins the democratic vote, they immediately return to anarchy mode for the next sixty minutes. If you're going to set things up this way ... you may as well not even bother having a Democracy mode option.