Pokemon MMORPG

[Traab]

How many people think they would play this? It would require an alteration to the rules, gyms would have to work like dungeons a bit, a nice path full of trainers to fight with the gym leader/boss at the end. You could even have the dungeon be formed as an instance that adjusts what you have to fight based on how many people are with you.

Quests would be easy to setup zone by zone, help random bug trainer find his metapod, escort a merchant through a wild pokemon infested trade road, things like that. Each starting area has different starting pokemon to choose from, and a solid levelling path similar to the current rpg games where you can often capture wild pokemon that will make the next zone easier to fight your way through. A long list of quests would help to avoid the grind wearing players down, and a decent team rocket/magma/trauma/whatever style storyline would give it the more epic feel as there is a reason beyond "gotta catch em all" to play.

Grouping up lets you go through areas you would struggle to handle solo and helps add extra uniqueness to the dungeon crawls. Perhaps even add in a different combat system for group battles so you dont see 5 players bulbasaurs ganging up on a single squirtle or something. A nice duel based pvp setup that lets you challenge other players to add that competition so many like, and of course, the obligatory griefer servers where anyone can attack anyone else that some people like so much. (can you tell I never did?)

[Mutant Sheep]

I actually thought of a more Pokemon Mystery Dungeon-feel to the inevitable PokeMMO. If you were going to use a class/race system, types are perfect for it. Too many pokemon, of course. Would be really hard to do, but legendary pokemon are made for raids.:smalltongue:

[Sith_Happens]

A nice duel based pvp setup that lets you challenge other players to add that competition so many like,

Let's be honest, this is what the game would really be about.

1. Catch pokemon.
2. Battle ALL the people!
3. ???
4. Profit.

[Lord Raziere]

Yea, not to burst your guys specu-bubble but….oh what the heck, I'm bursting it:

It already exists (http://www.pokemon-world-online.net/) :smalltongue:

[Sith_Happens]

Yea, not to burst your guys specu-bubble but….oh what the heck, I'm bursting it:

It already exists (http://www.pokemon-world-online.net/) :smalltongue:

Pretty sure we mean an official one.

[Moonshadow]

I would play this in a heartbeat. However, I think it would work really well as an action type MMO. You'd get to customise your trainer and and get to pick what town in what region you wished to start in with choice of starter pokemon.

For normal everyday running around, you'd be your trainer, but when battle started, you'd call out your first pokemon and run around as them instead. So I guess more like the show then the games.

Also give people a poke radar thing from the start so that people don't have to fight over spawns, but give it a recharge timer thing so it's not abusable by botters.

Honestly, a Pokemon MMO has enormous potential.

[Maryring]

I actually thought of a more Pokemon Mystery Dungeon-feel to the inevitable PokeMMO. If you were going to use a class/race system, types are perfect for it. Too many pokemon, of course. Would be really hard to do, but legendary pokemon are made for raids.:smalltongue:

Agreement. Just transplanting regular Pokemon games to MMO won't work, because the regular games already provide ways to meet, trade and battle with other trainers.

Personally though, I was thinking something more similar to PokePark.

[Traab]

The biggest issue would be balance decisions. There are so many types of pokemon, with such a huge mix of strengths and weaknesses that trying to make things "fair" would be a massive undertaking along the lines of dark age of camelot, where you had three factions, in a pvp centric game, and every race had its own unique classes with unique abilities. An albion rogue was not like a midgard rogue, which was not like a hibernian rogue.

Even the older versions of pokemon, while simpler, would be tough. How do you make it so say, a player with a grass type, fights a player with a fire type, and it isnt a stupidly pointless fight unless the grass player is 15 levels higher? In an mmo, this type of thing matters, because everyone complains that there is something that stomps them, which leads to never ending class balancing nerfs and buffs.

[RagingKrikkit]

Thing is, what is really being discussed here is a WoW clone where your weapons level up. I personally would not play a game like this, especally if it was pay-to-play (which we all know it would be, despite my being a penny-pincher). Nonehteless, a game like this will probably take off fairly well, due to brand-name recognition and parents being willing to buy almost anything for their kids these days. (Okay, that's probably something of an exaggeration.) A real Pokemon MMO (in my mind) should try to either recreate the feel of the handheld games, recreate a part of the handheld games (namely PvP battling), or go in a totally different direction than the handhelds.

First, the replication idea: This poses some of the normal issues of MMOs, such as spawn camping (avoidable by not having the "can't say no" rule, although this messes with the whole idea of replicating the idea), and not-so-normal ones, such as the inevitable ignoring of AI battles, because if there is no must-fight-if-seen rule nobody will bother with the AI when they could challenge other people, which would be the core of this game.

Then there is the partial recreation. Something like this would probably work along the lines of the battle colleseum (or maybe even battle frontier), that also includes your Pokemon leveling up (because if there was no character improvement, there is effectivey no reward.) This would be easier to pull off, but would probably end up feeling a lot like going to the battle tower and doing a wi-fi battle.

Third is going somewhere else entirely. This would be the hardest to pull off, and could either be the best or the worst idea, because this would essentially mean throwing the entire book out the window and making something new. And seeing as how the Gamecube games went, I don't think Nintendo wants to try going out on a limb like that again.

Also an issue is the combat mechanics. Here there are three options: real-time, turn-based "classic", and turn-based tactical.

Real-time would play like WoW, and really, strikes me as the least rewarding, as this would really just degenerate into a button-mashing frenzy. This could be made a little bit more interesting by allowing whole teams of Pokemon all at once, but that would either be impossible to manage (if one player controlls the whole team), or once again, just like WoW (if it is one Pokemon per player), with your fighting types right in the front line while your water and fire types use ranged attacks, and Chansey Miltank run around healing Pokemon.

Turn-based "classic" is recreating the feel of the handhelds, namely, Pokemon are static, and moves happen in order of fastest to slowest. This mode would suck, because it would just be something you can do forever on your DS with your team of action replayed shiny level 100 Arceus. Seriously, if they did any work on graphics in this game and that was the fighting mechanics, Nintendo would have some massive dissapointment on their hands.

Turn-based tactical, however, seems to hold some promise. It would allow for freedom of movement without the chaotic button mashing of a real-time game. However, it would probably end up feeling a lot like PTTA.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think that they could pull off a Pokemon MMO that would impress me. But nontheless, I'm just one guy in a world full of potential customers.

[Traab]

The thing is, what you call a WoW clone, is really how the majority of the more popular MMO games work. They are pretty much all button mashing frenzies, its just a standard way things are done. WoW is hardly the first to do things that way.

As for recreating the feel of the handhelds, it could be interesting, but thats a single player game, you have to find a way to bring in other people and make them want to play together, otherwise its not an MMO, its just an rpg. There are really a large number of ways the game could be setup, and each has its own ups and downs. The mystery dungeon setup is a very exciting possibility. If its left at you actually are a pokemon. The battles would be against other wild pokemon, or avoiding capture at the hands of the various team rocket type groups or other trainers. Have little pokemon villages spread out all over the place, with them fighting back against the humans that are trying to enslave them all if you want a real departure from the standard gotta catch em all setup of the cartoons. The gym leaders are the heads of the various human towns trying to "catch em all" and its up to you and your friends to break in there and free the captive pokemon.

[Mando Knight]

Personally, I would want it to just be the Pokémon games, but online.

Preferably with Wii-U and (3)DS inter-connectivity.

...Actually, if Nintendo is serious about bringing its online up to par, this would be a devious way of doing so with Gen VI or something...

[RagingKrikkit]

The thing is, what you call a WoW clone, is really how the majority of the more popular MMO games work. They are pretty much all button mashing frenzies, its just a standard way things are done. WoW is hardly the first to do things that way.

Which, if you ask me, is exactly why we need a new innovation. And really, Nintendo is the driving innovative force behind the video game industry.

As for recreating the feel of the handhelds, it could be interesting, but thats a single player game, you have to find a way to bring in other people and make them want to play together, otherwise its not an MMO, its just an rpg. There are really a large number of ways the game could be setup, and each has its own ups and downs. The mystery dungeon setup is a very exciting possibility. If its left at you actually are a pokemon. The battles would be against other wild pokemon, or avoiding capture at the hands of the various team rocket type groups or other trainers. Have little pokemon villages spread out all over the place, with them fighting back against the humans that are trying to enslave them all if you want a real departure from the standard gotta catch em all setup of the cartoons. The gym leaders are the heads of the various human towns trying to "catch em all" and its up to you and your friends to break in there and free the captive pokemon.[/QUOTE]

See my comment about doing something completely new. Take everything we know about Pokemon and turn it on its head. However, this will likely be a controversial move that will divide the fanbase worse than D&D 4th Edition did.