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Pokemon MMO Ideas

Ok so before you start thinking about it, forget about all your World of Wardumps and your RFOnlines and even your Guild Wars...

The Pokemon concept is awesome, i mean im classed as an "adult" and i think its an awesome game and show... so on that note, lets see what we came up with...

Overall Concept

The game pretty much follows the cartoons idea, you start off in Kanto as a teenager whos off to learn about and collect pokemon. You can only travel around Kanto and collect Kanto Pokemon, so just like the very first GB game.

Now before you go... thats the first GB game, no its not. Its got the same setting, as its Pokemon, so you WANT it to have the original Pokemon setting.

As we were aiming this game for the Wii we thought that it should be 3D and the areas should be ALOT bigger than they were in the original games. I mean a GB/GBA ran off tileset systems, so all areas were fairly small, at most like 30x30 or something. So as we are going 3D now we can have massive areas, just like they were in the cartoons. This gives alot more area for players to cover and co-exist in, giving it the Pokemon feeling while still being able to support masses of players.

You would wander round the world as your character (avatar) however, the game will revolve around you using your Pokemon to fight and things, although later on i will discuss what we came up with for your player to do in the game without your Pokemon...

The Battle System

This was where Jode and myself almost slapped each other when we realised what we could do with the Wii...

We wanted the system to be as close to the cartoon as possible, as it was always awesome watching the battles and seeing Ash or whoever TELL his pokemon what to do at the right time. So we wanted to do something like this, so we came up with an "influence" based system, which is realtime, opposed to the old style turn based fight systems.

So if your a tad baffled at what i mean, i will try and explain it a bit more, if you have ever played Black & White you may know what i mean already.

Just like in the normal Pokemon world, Pokemon do not obey their masters instantly, they have to be trained and spend time with their master. So in the battles you would have to influence your Pokemons decisions in the battle.

A perfect example would be if you had Pikachu fighting a squirtle you would wave your Wii controller to the right, and your character would shout out "Pikachu run to the right", and then if your Pikachu is well trained it will run to the right, giving you more control over how your Pokemons battle, and keeping it ALOT like the cartoons battles. You would also have your typical 4 moves on the screen like in Pokemon Colloseum or whatever, so you can press quick attack or something and your character would should out "Pikachu quick attack now" and if it obeys, bam it will do a move, although each move would have to have a cooldown or something, so you cant spam moves. Using this system would make full use of the Wii controls, and also you could use Voice Recognition later or whatever if you wanted so you could acctually talk to your Pokemon or whatever...

World Travelling

Ok so like most MMO games you can run round the world whenever you want... fairly simple. You could spend money on buying a bike or something and maybe other forms of transport for your avatar if you wish making you travel faster etc.

The awesome part of travelling comes in when i talk about Mounts. All MMOs have mounts so why should Pokemon be any different, you should be able to ride your Pokemon round the world like in the cartoons if you wish. So if you couldnt afford a bike you could get a Tauras or something to ride around on, or something that is semi ridable, although they may be slower/faster depending on what type and level it is.

Ok so we have covered travelling over land, but thats only half the fun. Like in the cartoons you would need a pokemon that can carry you along water to go travelling through the sea and rivers etc. I know i keep saying like in the cartoons but thats what a Pokemon game should be aiming for, a way for the player to play the game like it really is part of the cartoon.

So newer players would not be able to travel accross water as they havent found a pokemon that would allow them to, this allows people to constantly find new places as they find new pokemon. Like the ridable mounts these would differ in speed...

Finally the last part of travelling could be flying, i know its a pain in the ass allowing players to fly, but if you could fly around on your pokemon it would be awesome, no point saying the same stuff but im sure you get the grasp of how your pokemon would fly.

Trading/Shops

Ok so we were thinking that you as a player could specialize in different skills relating to pokemon that would earn you money. This would be like specializing as a breeder, so people can ask you to breed a new pokemon from their 2 prize Pokemon to get a new one, with possibly rare moves or slightly better stats. This is a fairly simple overview and could go into alot more depth with breeding but i dont know if it would be of much use to players.

You could only specialize in one main skill though, so if breeding wasnt for you, you could be a move master or something. So you can try to learn new moves which you can then sell to other trainers to teach to their Pokemon. Like breeding you could make this more in depth but i think this makes it simple enough for everyone...

There are plenty of other things you could specialize in, possibly making items for Pokemon to hold, or even specialize in making Pokemon look pretty for competitions or whatever, there are tons of possibilities...

Shops would just be like they are in the game, you could buy potions and other items in there for your Pokemon to use on their journeys. Would have to keep a cooldown on potions so you cant spam these as well...

World Characters/Quests

All Pokemon games to this day have been fairly decent in what characters it has in it, like the Professors from the cartoons were in there, Ash was in/on mount silver, and there was Team Rocket, although there was never Jessy/James. So they could be in there as NPCs to talk to for quests or for just a laugh. SWG (Starwars Galaxies) did well with this sort of stuff having all the characters from the SW universe in their MMO so it would be cool to have this sorta stuff in a Pokemon MMO.

As far as quests go, they wouldnt play a MAJOR part in the game, mainly a method of earning money without having to fight other people. So you could go talk to Professor Oak who would like you to go collect some berries or something from a nearby place. I know it doesnt sound too exciting but most quests would just be there as something more for players to do. There would be certain KEY quests in the game which take you to certain key areas so you can catch Pokemon that allow you to travel to other areas, like water travelling pokemon etc.

PvP

So PvP would basically be a load of duels. However the duels always have a wager put on them. So you would bet 100 gold that your Pokemon could beat your opponents, then if he/she accepts you have a fight and then win the cash/items/pokemon from them. That way PvP is worthwhile and players stand stuff to lose from it, also you could get a small amount of battle XP for your Pokemon when fighting others. Although this may need to be tweaked as people could take advantage to level their Pokemon fast, but Pokemon levels are not the MOST important thing in the game, as you need to spend time with your Pokemon as individuals so they get used to you and obey your moves.

There would also be open PvP areas where any pokemon can be brought out from your party and can attack any other targetted pokemon, although you dont really earn anything from this, you just get to take out other peoples Pokemon, so lets say your trying to capture a fairly rare Pokemon and some idiot comes along and tries to steal it you can just keep hitting his Pokemon so he has to put another one out, or go back to the rest area to get all his pokemon recharged.

Pokedex

The Pokedex would be quite important in this as it would help you find out more information on your Pokemon and new ones. You could also pay people to give you information on other pokemon, however we were discussing the way you document Pokemon in the game. Rather than just seeing/battling them and then it recording them, we thought that it would be better if you saw them you got VERY minimal information on them, but the more you fight them the more you find out. So lets say you see a Squirtle, you get its name and a small description. If you defeat one you get a rough bit of battle data on it, like its size and rough stats. Then after finding some more in other places you get a listing of where you can find these Pokemon in the world. Then after defeating tons of them you get more detailed battle data, like what moves it commonly uses as well as its weaknesses/strengths. Meaning most hardcore players would want to battle alot of Pokemon and study their weaknesses so they are ready in PvP etc.

The other KEY thing about the Pokedex here is the Nintendo DS, why not use that to be your portable Pokedex? So you could login on it and download your current data to it at any time, well as long as you have a wifi connection. Then possibly over local wifi if it picks up any other pokemon trainers it will list them and you can trade pokemon data with them, still incorporating the local wifi method into it for extra information etc.

Rare Pokemon/Boss Raids

This part was fairly tricky, as there should only be one of each rare pokemon, i.e Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres and others. I[APO]m not sure if Silver classes as another Lugia, however rather than taking these pokemon out of the world and not allowing anyone to own them, we decided that it would be AWESOME if you could own them, however you never acctually own them, they just hang with you until reset time...

Now alot of you may be thinking... wtf am i on about... its fairly simple... continue reading below.

Every 2 weeks or so, ALL players get a chance to compete to claim one of the rare Pokemon in the world, this is where boss raids would come in. You would need a LARGE amount of people to take on one of the rare pokemon in the world, so everyone would go in there and battle together to take down the Boss/Rare Pokemon. Then once its downed it remains at low HP while people keep throwing Pokeballs at it... People may turn on each other here while their friends try to capture the Pokemon. Once its been taken the battle ends or if you have all taken too long, whoever captured it has control over it for 2 weeks or whatever.

Now although it looks cool for you to ride around on an Raikou, or fly around on a Lugia they also serve another purpose. If you have a rare Pokemon in your party all the other pokemon in your party gain extra bonuses. So if you had Moltres you would get an extra 10% damage with fire based attacks or something along those lines. Also if you had Mew your psychic abilities would be up by 10% and you could teleport to anywhere you have been before. Also you could use these rare Pokemon as mounts which are much faster than normal ones and also look awesome

Rankings/Competitions

There would be world rankings, so the top breeders/trainers would get recognition for their hardwork, also gives other players something to aim for as a trainer/breeder.

The game would also include the normal competitions in Pokemon games, where you could win rare prizes and money. Its fairly simple really...

Expansion

The joy of Pokemon is that there is SOOO many Pokemon in the world that you can just release an expansion pack for the game giving access to the Johto or other areas and new pokemon.

Well if you read through all that you must be bored, but that sounds like a pretty solid and awesome MMO to me!

Ninendo, make it so!

Incase anyones confused this is a conversation Jode and myself had during and after watching Pokemon on TV, to my knowledge this game isnt being made, although i sure hope Nintendo do make something like this for the Wii, i know I would buy it!