What would it take? A Pokemon MMO

[RattataGuy]

The desire for a Pokemon MMO is somewhat mixed in the Pokemon fandom community, for good reason. It would be something of a big undertaking, and no two people have the same idea of how it would, could or ought to work out.

But I was thinking that us older Pokemon fans could form a company, work on the infrastructure and pitch the idea to Nintendo (and/or GameFreak). I figure that even if we don't get the opportunity to make "The" Pokemon MMO, we'll have the foundation set for a pretty good online game anyway. Plus the experience would be helpful, especially on a resume.

I don't have much in the way of computer experience, but I do have some entrepreneurial and writing skill. I have an eye for detail, and a love to see the fandom continue to develop grow and (possibly) mature, over time. If we can get enough hardworking, knowledgeable Pokemon fans together, I'm sure that more than enough would have the expertise, or the connections to make some headway. We'd probably even have loads of fun too!

I have a text file full of ideas that I think would be key in marking a genre change from single player RPG to online multi-player, while still being true to the heart and soul of the Pokemon franchise.

More importantly, I believe that there must be a way to structure a Pokemon MMO so that that handheld games remain lucrative for Nintendo. That is the only way that Nintendo would even start thinking of endorsing an MMO to begin with.

[Crystalmaster Mike]

I'll just ignore the fact there would be better (i.e., more active) forums you could propose this, and get to the weak points in your idea.

Firstly, you should be putting up a rally thread all over the place to be sure to have enough technical expertise on your team.

Secondly, you'd be needing a real marketing plan to prove the profitability of this undertaking to the guys in suit at Nintendo.
Moving them away from this established course - that Pokémon is a kids' game/show/concept and therefor should be kept light and E for All - is gonna be a real obstacle.

Thirdly, your group is just going to need credibility. There're going to have to be more than 30+ fanatics that also happen to be good programmers. A wide variety, both in sex, race and occupation, will be more of a representation, in my opinion, of the possible target group for the game.


Rest assured, I would be as eager as the next guy to buy the game or watch the anime that steers away from the current spirit and gets some action and maturity in the Pokémon franchise.

[Crystalmaster Mike]

Well, I didn't mean to bash your idea, just tackle the tough points in it.

The way I see it, a Pokémon MMORPG can't be made on the current base. It would have to be upped from E to at least 12+ or something. Only then could you insert the action and hidden sexuality that attracts the most audience.

That aside, most MMO's contain other things we haven't seen in the Pokémon games so far.


1)
The battles so far are all based on turn-based game play (except Ranger and Snap), while it should be possible to just send out a Pokémon and have it attack in any random direction.

I'm picturing a wide open plain, on which PC's can send out any number of Pokémon (up to 6) and have it follow them around.


2)
The leveling system as it is might be less than fit for an MMO. Maybe Pokémon should be able to grow in more than the present 3 ways: level, stats and content stats. Maybe they should be able to become better at, for instance, 17 stats, one for each Pokémon type, it might be better.
As such, you could train your Rattata until it learns Hyper Fang, while it doesn't necessarily have to know Bite yet. Or maybe you could train the parts of your Pokémon's body, have it grow better fangs while it claws may remain undeveloped.


3)
What is a successful MMO without a good marketing strategy? Booster packs might make it easy for you to customize your game as you want it, while railing the money in for the "suits". And so, you could keep playing the same game, while being able to go to new places.
They could make, say, a "Kanto Pack", where you can go to Kanto and beat the Gym Leaders, catch the native Pokémon, and so on.
Or, Booster Packs could influence which Pokémon the NPC have. Say, based on the inserted region, they have other Pokémon, while keeping the same "genre" of Pokémon they train, e.g. based on Breeding Groups.
And, if they really make low-level Packs, you could make it so you never have to battle "that yellow rodent", or the box-filling uselessness that can be Unown.


4)
... All that aside... It should be a 3rd Game for the Wii, IMO. And in any case, more cut scenes are needed. The game, and anime, suffers from static dialogue at some points: too much text (and "!" signs), and too little action (including sudden changes in scenery and unexpected yet unavoidable sidequests).

[mr_pikachu]

A few points I'd like to make, some more relevant than others.

The way I see it, a Pokémon MMORPG can't be made on the current base. It would have to be upped from E to at least 12+ or something. Only then could you insert the action and hidden sexuality that attracts the most audience.

I'll get you, Pokémon!

For example, in fire, in water, in grass, in forests
in earth, in clouds, in that girl's skirt (eek!)

-Mezase Pokémon Master (translated)

1)
The battles so far are all based on turn-based game play (except Ranger and Snap), while it should be possible to just send out a Pokémon and have it attack in any random direction.

I'm picturing a wide open plain, on which PC's can send out any number of Pokémon (up to 6) and have it follow them around.

I'm not sure maintaining a turn-based system is necessary. Personally, I've long envisioned it sort of like the 3D Legend of Zelda games in terms of free movement. And while I'm a little averse to MP meters for a Pokemon game, something similar could (should?) probably be employed to make things more realistic. That would get past the artificial "you can't use more than five Fire Blasts!" limitation, which would be more suitable for getting people involved in the world.

As you said, not all Pokemon games these days rely on that counter, so why should an MMO of Pokemon? Decreasing the "energy loss" from using a powerful move could, in my view, be a valuable reward for levelling up.

2)
The leveling system as it is might be less than fit for an MMO. Maybe Pokémon should be able to grow in more than the present 3 ways: level, stats and content stats. Maybe they should be able to become better at, for instance, 17 stats, one for each Pokémon type, it might be better.
As such, you could train your Rattata until it learns Hyper Fang, while it doesn't necessarily have to know Bite yet. Or maybe you could train the parts of your Pokémon's body, have it grow better fangs while it claws may remain undeveloped.

No offense, but this seems a little overcomplicated to me. A few adjustments wouldn't be bad, but only to add to the realism of the world. Easy example regarding the "MP bar": it no longer wears me out to throw ten consecutive roundhouse kicks, but it was a little tiring when I started martial arts. In contrast, it's impossible to throw a double roundhouse until you can do a single roundhouse, and the advanced double jumping snap kick must be preceded by learning a single snap kick.

It would make a little more sense if, say, a Pikachu could learn Slash before Thundershock; just as some people learn certain kicks before punches, a Pikachu might learn claw strikes before honing its electric powers. But I think you'd have to be very careful to avoid overcomplicating matters; at most, maybe you'd have separate stats for Physical and Special moves.

The question still remains how you'd accumulate Exp. points for each one individually. Would the game keep track of the moves you used of that type, or something? What about Pokemon who only know one type of move but might learn the other later... how would one accumulate Special Exp., for instance, if it knew only Physical moves?

3)
What is a successful MMO without a good marketing strategy? Booster packs might make it easy for you to customize your game as you want it, while railing the money in for the "suits". And so, you could keep playing the same game, while being able to go to new places.
They could make, say, a "Kanto Pack", where you can go to Kanto and beat the Gym Leaders, catch the native Pokémon, and so on.
Or, Booster Packs could influence which Pokémon the NPC have. Say, based on the inserted region, they have other Pokémon, while keeping the same "genre" of Pokémon they train, e.g. based on Breeding Groups.
And, if they really make low-level Packs, you could make it so you never have to battle "that yellow rodent", or the box-filling uselessness that can be Unown.

Totally agree with packs to unlock new lands. Not so sure about influencing NPC's Pokemon, but maybe there would be sufficient appeal in, say, dodging Zubat.

4)
... All that aside... It should be a 3rd Game for the Wii, IMO. And in any case, more cut scenes are needed. The game, and anime, suffers from static dialogue at some points: too much text (and "!" signs), and too little action (including sudden changes in scenery and unexpected yet unavoidable sidequests).

Does the Wii have the proper capabilities to handle an MMO? People have had enough trouble with Super Smash Bros. Brawl battling; I worry about what might happen if dozens, even hundreds of trainers were in close proximity with one another in one location. When the movements of three human players are significantly delayed, what would happen with an MMO? This is one of the central obstacles for this project... the developers would almost certainly have to make use of computer hardware rather than that of a Nintendo product.

[classy_cat18]

Does the Wii have the proper capabilities to handle an MMO? People have had enough trouble with Super Smash Bros. Brawl battling; I worry about what might happen if dozens, even hundreds of trainers were in close proximity with one another in one location.

Let's see...493 Pokemon if legendaries are allowed to be caught (which would present a problem with the balance of the MMO), millions of fans in Japan alone...

The size and complexity would put WoW to shame. And putting it together might take a few...years.

[mr_pikachu]

I can think of two ways to get around the legendary "problem."

1. Restrict their use in battles. Maybe they would only be allowed in specific, elite tournaments or something with stringent enough qualifications to ensure that all competitors would pretty much have to have legendaries. Like "The Pokemon MMO World Championships" or something that big.

2. Make every legendary encounter an extremely rare "event" that almost never happens. Then, either have the legendaries unobtainable (i.e. you have to KO them for massive experience; catching them doesn't work) or follow idea #1.

Also, your post reminded me of another wrinkle in the "hardware capability" problem... if trainers are allowing their Pokemon to roam free in a crowded environment (or if they're battling one another), that multiplies the number of simultaneously displayed characters up to seven-fold. Talk about a server crash waiting to happen... particularly if it's being done with the questionable Nintendo Wi-Fi network.

I'm not sure creating working models for 493 Pokemon would add that much development time, though. If anything, it would probably shorten it; most modern RPG probably have monsters that number in the thousands.

[Jeff]

I can't believe I missed this thread!

I decided a while ago that, knowing Nintendo, a legal Pokemon MMO will likely never happen. What can happen is a fan-made game, which has been tried before. The game is/was Pokemon Online and from what I heard, despite what the makers said, they did not get permission from Nintendo to make it. But that got me thinking the same thing RattattaGuy asked, what would it take to make a legit Pokemon MMO? The answer is that it would have to be fan-made and couldn't contain any Pokemon characters. So what would we use in place of the pokemon? Easy, Nintendo doesn't own fan-made pokemon, so we could use them. There are easily hundreds of them (I alone created over 100) and except for ones that are based on Nintendo's pokemon characters, there is nothing wrong with using them as long as their respective creators give permission.

Another thing that using all fan-made creatures gives us is the opportunity to create a more balanced metagame. We could make most final evolutions actually useful instead of having a handful of OUs. Being in control of the game mechanics gives us the opportunity to make sure strategies are balanced (the current pokemon game mechanics seem to favor sweepers). I've also created a new type chart that adds 3 types (Light, Magic, and Sound) and is much more balanced than the current one.

Some other ideas I've had for a Pokemon-based MMO include 3-way battles, which are between 3 different trainers, each sending out one "pokemon" at a time, and a new breeding system where "pokemon" that you put into this game's version of the day care might breed with someone else's if they can't breed with each other (or if you put just one in).

Anyway, back to what I said originally, if people want something like this to happen then this would be the path to take. Instead of worrying about how to get permission from a company to use their characters, we can simply use our own, and instead of worrying about the technical limitations and ability to develop for Nintendo hardware, we can just develop for computer hardware instead. Of course, rallying support for this type of project would be helpful too.

[mr_pikachu]

Interesting idea. Normally I would question how popular a Pokemon MMO with no Pokemon could be, but if Pokemon Online was successful then maybe... hmm. It'd be tricky to get around copyright violations - remember the fake Pokemon Game Boy games? - but it might be worth it While I must admit I question the addition of new types, the possibilities that a Fakemon MMO opens are fascinating. (3-way battles = awesome!)

Of course, the primary problem with a fan-made MMO is getting a dedicated team. I suppose it could be done in Flash, at least in the beginning; depending on how vast the RPG were to get it might eventually require a more advanced language.

[Jeff]

The fake Pokemon Gameboy games were all hacked versions of existing games if I'm not mistaken. A game built from the ground up on the other hand wouldn't have copyright issues, unless of course, people put copyrighted stuff in there such as actual pokemon. As for adding more types, that's my idea for balancing the type chart. Grass, for example, is considered underpowered, but by adding Light (which on my type chart, Grass is strong against) it would be made stronger.

[Crystalmaster Mike]

The advantage of Fakemon for an MMO - no real Pokémon means no(blunt) copyright infringements - might also be a disadvantage, depending on how many Pokéfans are willing to forget about ever being able to use their beloved Nintendo-made Rhysorswine in the online game.
Then again, if some people would refuse to play it for lack of "real" Pokémon, it would decrease the chance of a server crash occuring.

Mind you I know of at least one other (bèta) online Pokémon game - Pokémon Volcano. Based on HTML, no less, it, up until now, offers only limited gameplay - no PokéMarts mean no way to buy extra PokéBalls.

[mr_pikachu]

EDIT: Okay, I've done a little more research since making this initial post... it looks like there are a number of Pokemon RPGs out there, from Pokemon Indigo and Pokemon Black to Pokemon World (part of Zango, apparently) and TPPC.

So, does anyone have any experience with these or others? Any useful knowledge that could be applied to a future project? Perhaps some insight as to how these RPGs have avoided legal issues with Nintendo, Game Freak, and so forth?

In any event, there doesn't seem to be quite as big of a void in the fan-made Pokemon MMO market as I would've guessed....