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Old 04-29-2009, 03:45 PM   #1
Vran
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Problems and Solutions for a PokĂŠmon MMO

It seems we all agree that a Pokémon MMO is a must-have thing. But before Nintendo can pull this stunt off, they have to address two big things: the technological problems and the logistical problems of a Pokémon MMO.

The technological ones are all doable. We know that because other MMOs exist and are quite successful. Server load, costs, customer service, you name it: Blizzard's handled all of these, as have Sony and many other companies that have tried their luck at MMOs over the years.

The logistical ones are the really tough problems to figure out. Here's just some of the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

How many different starting grounds will there be? One? Four? Thirty-two?

What will the player classes be? Just a Pokémon Trainer? Will roles popularized by the cartoon be in the game, like Brock the breeder or Dawn the Contest trainers?

What role if any will Team Rocket / Rocket / Magma and Aqua / Galactic have in their respective regions? Can a player join from the start (like Alliance vs. Horde)? Can they join later on (like a guild)? What would be the privileges of being in the group, and what would be the penalties?

Can a player use his or her Pokémon as mounts? If not, how do you explain this away given their prominent role as flying and surfing mounts in the handheld games? If so, how do you render over 200 different creature models flying, surfing, or waterfalling their trainers across the screen?

Can Pokémon be used outside of their ecosystems (like using a Remoraid on land)? Can Pokémon receive benefits from the ecosystem not seen in the games, or will they be limited to just the weather?

If a Pokémon uses Sunny Day at night, what happens to the sky? How long should the effect last? What do you do when multiple trainers in close proximity fight over the weather in that area? And if you disallow trainers the use of such moves outside of battle, how do you permit it in battle and still not encounter the same problems?

Can Pokémon attack you if you are not in combat mode? For example, if you are sitting around a campfire at night talking to some NPCs about Team Magma, can a Level 32 Loudred "!" detect you in his radius of attack and instigate a battle with you?

Will wild Pokémon only be in tall grass, bodies of water, and sand dunes?

Will wild Pokémon be visible or invisible prior to battle?

Can any Pokémon follow a trainer around? What's the limitation on number, size, or weight?

Will IVs, EVs, and other advanced components of the handheld games be involved in the MMORPG? Do we want them to be or do we want all Pokémon to have straight 31's and to have fully-customizable EVs at the time you capture them? If we want it to be like the games, how does one incorporate the Pokérus? the Macho Brace? EV training? Breeding? And so on.

Will there be shinies? If so, will shinies be guaranteed to have a fixed IV like in Gold and Silver? Or will it be random like in Diamond and Pearl?

Can a Pokémon still only know four moves at a time?

Will there be more than one of the special services from the games -- Move Tutor, Daycare, Move Deleter -- or will there only be one per land?

Will Pokémon's attacks alter the local terrain for the duration of the battle? permanently? or, like in the 3D Pokémon simulation games, will there be no effects which last beyond the duration of the move itself? In other words, if a Dugtrio uses Earthquake, will cracks in the ground remain or will they magically heal?

In Johto, how do you prevent people from all flocking to the "tree that hates water" north of the third gym and blocking the way to Ecruteak?

Should legendaries be obtainable? Should they even be a common encounter? Or should they live up to their name and be rare sightings which are impossible to catch?

If you play in a group, what happens when somebody defeats a boss and permanently changes the story? For example, if I'm in a group of four and the first person to defeat Giovanni causes Team Rocket to disband, what happens to me when I want to challenge him to a fight? What happens to trainers in the Silph Co. building?

Will important character-NPCs like Giovanni or Cynthia be in more than one place at once, or will they have a "one world, one position" existence?

Can players join a dojo or gym from the game?

Assuming a player-character was to become the Pokémon Champion, what would happen next? Would he remain the champion until he was defeated? Or would it be like a theme park ride -- there's somebody 5 minutes in front of you who's watching the credits and someone 5 minutes behind you who just defeated Lucian while you're here listening to Cynthia's speech? If he remains the Champion, what happens if he wants to leave but not give up his title? If he doesn't get to remain the Champion, what happens when everyone on the map claims to be the Pokémon Champion? And if the NPC Pokémon Champion cannot be defeated, then is there any penalty for losing to him or to her?

I think I'll stop here for now. I hope this convinces you that Nintendo is never going to make a Pokémon MMORPG, despite how much we might want them to, unless one of two things happens: either MMO making gets a whole lot easier or the Pokémon handheld profits start to taper off at an alarming rate which spurs Nintendo to action but not too alarming a rate which spurs Nintendo to abandon the milked-to-death cash cow.
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Old 05-01-2009, 02:55 AM   #2
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Most of your problems are easily solved, the main issue in my eyes is how you make a successful MMO when the anime, manga, games, etc. have always relied on one on one battles. Do you just scrap it, and let people go about raiding Articuno's lair or what have you with fifty trainers? Logic would dictate you would pretty much have to. Would you get experience for battling other trainers? Probably not, apart from NPC trainers. What sorts of gear would be included to give people reasons for accomplishing daring quests and the like?

Things like that, and how to convince parents to buy their kids $9.95 a month subscriptions are the real issues for why a game like this wouldn't happen.
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Old 05-01-2009, 03:05 AM   #3
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But you haven't listed anything that I didn't already mention. And for the others which are easily solved according to you, you offered no concrete solutions! You just said, "Easy." Well anyone can say that! But saying and doing are two different things.

And it's not that any one of the problems I listed is meant to be taken as difficult. It's that the sheer quantity of these problems in need of addressing is overwhelming. Think of it like any moral story which pits many small and weak animals against one big one: together, many tiny things can take down a giant. Similarly, Nintendo may be able to handle addressing every single one of these problems. But they may be scared away from the challenge by the fact that in order to do so, given the large number of problems in need of addressing, it would take them a dedicated year, possibly longer. Nintendo is the single big behemoth and these problems are the many little mice or ants or bees or whatever other animal you'd like to picture taking the great beast down. The Pokémon team would have to be discussing these issues in every last one of their meetings. The coders would be told to program the land and the monsters but once they got those done they'd just have to sit on their hands until the game's mechanics had been sorted out. They would need to spend a year or longer discussing all of this when instead they could be working on the development of Pokémon's 5th generation for the handheld or its 1st real generation for the Wii or the Wii's successor.

And I think it's that latter scenario which Nintendo is telling them to do instead. They won't bother with MMO discussions until the handheld Pokémon market shows slowdown.

But thank you for taking the time to read and reply!
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Old 05-01-2009, 05:25 AM   #4
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tl;dr, but ask and ye shall receive.

You'd have each of the labs, each of the team headquarters, so at least eight starting cities, each of them with a yard trash area.

You'd have different player classes, with different added abilities. Trainers with more battling ability, breeders who are able to raise pokemon faster, contest trainers who have more charisma and get more moves, and so on. Making the game as diverse as possible increases replay value and multiple character creation, vital in an MMO.

Privileges for being in one of the teams would include cheaper items and getting to be evil (which the fandom has been begging for forever).

Yes you could use 'mon as mounts, but only when they're a certain level, and you'd have to train them to do it, perhaps involving some sort of quest. Everybody loves quests. And the rendering wouldn't be too much of a concern, considering you wouldn't really have to change the sprites already necessary for basic gameplay.

I imagine they could be used outside of the ecosystems, but with significantly slower movement, but environment boosts would still be weather based.

I'd think that weather changing moves would be either high level, or an area effect move which lasts sort of like a buff. Weather moves would go in the same style, with the latest one used getting precedence.

If you're in the wild and you enter a wild aggressive Poké's radius of awareness, it'd attack.

Outside of cities or settled areas, smaller 'mon would likely hide in the grass, but it could be done either way.

It'd probably be limited to one Pokémon out at a time.

Breeding would be possible, but difficult, while I think that IVs/EVs would be replaced with more items or some such.

Shinies are quest rewards, or really hard.

Pokes could have four moves active at a time, but could remember older moves at any time, in some sort of spellbook sort of thing.

My guess is you'd have limited daycare and tutor services, and the move deleter would be unnecessary.

Magically heal, otherwise there would be nowhere to walk after week three.

Not everything would be identical story and plotwise to the games, it needs to be different to validate its existence.

I wouldn't allow legends, but it could be done either way. They'd likely be in dungeons as bosses or some such.

Beating Giovanni or such wouldn't have any lasting effect on the rest of the game, you'd just get Gio loot and he'd respawn later, like any other MMO. And they'd likely stay in one place, but could wander around a bit as well as an added perk.

Probably not, though groups could form their own "Gyms" or evil teams in the same sort of way that you would make guilds or something in Ultima Online or similar.

You can't be the champion, because then it would be over. MMOs are never over.
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Old 05-01-2009, 05:59 AM   #5
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I still don't think you get my point. Of course you can come up with your personal answer to each of these questions: but what I am saying is that Nintendo would need to come up with the answer, the one which would satisfy the majority of the playerbase. And many of your suggestions in their current form would rankle a good half or even more than half of the video game fanbase. Magically heal? Shinies as quest rewards? It's clear to me that you're not taking this seriously: you haven't given your ideas much thought and seem to be eager to engage in a type-and-post conversation. In other words, an internet argument. ^^; =\

I'll put it to you this way: if I said that LucasArts would need to come up with a good answer to the question "How are you going to handle Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies?" back in 2002, it sounds like you're the sort of person who would have said, "Pfft, that's easy" and just thrown in your 2¢, whether it was "Let anyone who wants to be a Jedi be a Jedi so long as he works really hard for it" or "Force Jedi to be really rare. In order to give everyone a fair shot at being one, make it so that if you die as a Jedi, you lose your Jedi status and have to get back in line if you want to get it again." The fact that they ended up doing the second thing, then fans complained, then they switched to the first thing, and then fans complained again, pretty much proves my point that simple-to-come-up-with solutions are not necessarily the best ones. These problems I've asked you to consider may sound simple on the surface because it's easy for each of us to list his own personal preferences. I can do that too: there isn't a single question I wrote above that I don't already have an answer to in my mind.

But the difference between us appears to be that you think the answers you think are best are best whereas I think that any company attempting to build an MMO around an existing franchise like Pokemon, Star Wars, Star Trek, whatever needs to hold regular meetings week after week and needs to interview hundreds, if not thousands of fans from all over their market segment. Men and women, children and senior citizens, people from all walks of life. Not just you and not just me.

I wasn't really looking for answers to these questions. I was just pointing out that Nintendo has a lot to address.

And judging from your replies, they have a lot to address. Because I like some but not many of your answers. And we're just two fans. When you consider the millions of Pokémon fans, you begin to realize just how grand this undertaking is. It really can be overwhelming. And it's precisely why so few successful companies are willing to compete head-to-head with the already-entrenched Blizzard. If your franchise is already successful, then why take such an unnecessary risk? That's their mentality: because they're bad entrepreneurs but good loyalists to their investors. ;)
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Old 05-01-2009, 06:26 AM   #6
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You pointed out that I didn't offer any solutions, so I took it to mean "plz give me your tl;dr solutions, wise Muyo"

And it would be silly of me to take it seriously. We agree that it's not going to happen, but for different reasons it seems.

Point on magic terrain healing: Earthquakes, fissures, rock tombs and the like would necessitate that they don't remain, otherwise the world would be incredibly cluttered, which diminishes the draw.

As for why Pokémon might eventually do it anyway, the answer is simple. Selling 100k units at $50 each, with a $9.95 subscription fee is immensely more profitable than selling 300k units at $35 each. You do seem to vastly underestimate the competition that exists to WoW. Nothing comes close to taking the crown, but considering the loyalty that some of the games enjoy (the original Everquest still has several thousand subscribers. Think about that.) it's an immensely profitable genre to get into if you have even a half decent product or sizable fan base.

Last edited by Muyotwo; 05-01-2009 at 06:29 AM.
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Old 05-01-2009, 06:44 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Muyotwo View Post
And it would be silly of me to take it seriously.
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"Do not be abrasive and inconsiderate" is the fundamental rule of all social spaces.
You should at least try to take people a little more seriously than you've done so far. Don't let 4chan or net culture in general endanger your opinion of humankind's intelligence or goodwill.
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Old 05-01-2009, 11:47 PM   #8
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Not taking filling in the blanks on a "how to fix a Pokemon MMO" seriously means I have no opinion of humanity's intelligence or goodwill? I don't really get how you could consider it abrasive or inconsiderate, just putting my opinions out there.

As for an idea, I think that basing an MMO around more of a Mystery Dungeon sort of universe would be interesting. You'd travel around an open world, encountering other Pokémon, leveling, evolving, getting items, etc. Replay value comes in by letting you play as any of the Pokémon you've defeated, opening up a wide range of worlds and play possibilities. And since it's not training/battling stuff, it wouldn't compromise the core gamers. It would make a lot more sense in my mind to have a group of Pokémon adventuring together and trying to take down Mewtwo, than a bunch of trainers working together until it's time to make the capture and its everyone for himself.
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Old 05-02-2009, 03:14 AM   #9
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Lol - "Guys, we've beaten Mewtwo! Yeah! Now, who wants to catch him?"
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Old 05-02-2009, 03:29 AM   #10
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If you want it to be WoW styled, then here's how to do a Pokémon MMO, in 2 easy steps:

1: Remove the "okémon"
2: Insert "aper Mario" in its place
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Old 05-02-2009, 05:52 AM   #11
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>You should at least try to take people a little more seriously than you've done so far. Don't let 4chan or net culture in general endanger your opinion of humankind's intelligence or goodwill.

Just a warning to you: a lot of our lexicon/memes/means of response are pulled from 4chan or similar "cultural centers" (using the term very loosely), so you may have to get used to at least some level of influence, though most of us are far from /b/tards.
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Old 05-02-2009, 06:30 PM   #12
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While a Pokemon MMO does seem like the logical step up, I doubt Nintendo will ever do it. It's not about technical or logistical issue IMO. It's the target audience.

Nintendo's is typically trying to draw in the very young crowd or casual gamers. Meanwhile, MMOs are targeting young adults and the hardcore gamers

Proof is in the Wii and DS games. Nothing super hardcore ever comes out on the Wii. Games like Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports, Wii Music, MarioKart, and such are there to appease younger crowds. Meanwhile, their list of hardcore games is pretty short. I can't even think of one off the top of my head.

Additionally, most MMOs are on PC, although some also have 360 and PS ports, almost none have been on a Nintendo system except [gasp] Phantasy Star Online 1&2 for GameCube.

While a Pokemon MMO would be cool, it's just a dream. You can argue about logistics and technical power and who should catch Mewtwo and who can join Team Rocket, but it's pretty much never going to happen, so all this is moot.
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Old 05-02-2009, 06:48 PM   #13
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Yeah, Pokemon Games are aimed at kids and teenagers/adults who like to play kids games. They'd never bother with an MMO, because only a small minority of hardcore gamers would be interested. People who don't play the handhelds would be put off by the fact it involves the word "Pokemon". Coupled with the difficulties of getting such a complex game on Nintendo's simple console makes it sound very unlikely for the time being.

Also, if you take a look at this interview, the game developers discuss the unlikelyhood of an MMO Pokemon game.
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Old 05-02-2009, 08:07 PM   #14
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Originally Posted by empoleon dynamite View Post
Also, if you take a look at this interview, the game developers discuss the unlikelyhood of an MMO Pokemon game.
"Discuss" is hardly the word I'd use to describe what took place. More like "sidestepped."
Quote:
G4: A lot of G4 readers love the Pokemon series, but want to see a proper Pokemon role-playing game on a home console, or even a Pokemon MMO. Do you see that ever happening?

JM: One of the core concepts of the Pokemon games is trading. You can trade within the game, but you can also go out and meet with your friends to trade. You can talk with your family and friends as you play Pokemon. For this concept, the most suitable hardware is portable, like the Nintendo DS. That's why we focus on portable game systems.
Let's translate what was said:
- one of the core concepts in Pokemon is trading
- you can trade inside the game
- you can also trade with other people in the real world
- conclusion: Pokemon is meant to be on handhelds.

LOL. How does that even follow!? "You can trade ... therefore, handhelds. "

He never said they wouldn't do an MMO, either. All he said is that he sees Pokemon at home on handhelds. A computer MMO could co-exist alongside the main franchise, and a DS MMO could also be quite feasible. It would have very low graphics, maybe even the exact same in-game graphics as the 4th-gen Pokémon games, but it'd still technically be an MMO if you were able to interact with other players online and go on quests and stuff.

But what's funniest of all is how in his awkward attempt to evade the question he conjures up such a ludicrous excuse as this! As if you couldn't trade on a home console or PC! As if we don't all know it's true that before the GTS was created that trades were rare! and that after the GTS was born that 99% of Pokemon trading takes place through Nintendo WiFi! If Game Freak's official answer to the question of a Pokemon MMO is, "Ehhhhhhhhh, how would it incorporate trades? ", then l-o-l.
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Last edited by Vran; 05-02-2009 at 08:10 PM.
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Old 05-02-2009, 08:10 PM   #15
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I went off memory instead of re-reading xd
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Old 05-02-2009, 08:32 PM   #16
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Gosh!
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