Games We Want – Pokemon MMO, A REAL Online Experience
Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 10:54pm by Zacko
Back in March, Junichi Masuda, the series director of Pokemon, was asked if they would consider turning Pokemon into an MMO.
This was their response:
“At this point, we’re not thinking of going in that direction. Trading is a core concept of Pokémon. So when you’re trading, you meet with a friend and decide which one you want and which one they want. I would like to emphasize real-world communication. You don’t see each other online.”
Sure, that was seven months ago, and they could have changed their minds by now, but lets all just admit that they haven’t. You’ll have to excuse my complete unwillingness to accept this excuse they have given, and I intend on ripping it to pieces.
First, lets take a look at the most successful MMO on the market: World of Warcraft. According to Wikipedia, over 11.5 million users log in each month to play a game, most of playing along side other members of their group with whom they have allied themselves with (for those of you unfamiliar with the game, these are known as guilds). Many people consider the people they play with in the game to be better friends than those they have in real life, and regardless of your opinion on the sanity and social ability of those people, you have to admit that these people are enjoying themselves and making friends. Within the game, there is also an auction house, where players go to sell items and gear they do not want for profit.
So, how does this apply to Pokemon? Masuda said, “Trading is a core concept of Pokémon. So when you’re trading, you meet with a friend and decide which one you want and which one they want.” Sure, lets assume that I agree with this statement (I’ll come back to this). An MMO would be an excellent platform for trading with friends! The most recent games already has an online version of random training anyways. And meeting other players in game would make for an excellent way to happen upon a great Pokemon you were looking for. “Dang, that was a great battle. I’ll trade you this Pokemon for a different one.”
However, Nintendo is stuck in the past. “I would like to emphasize real-world communication. You don’t see each other online.” To this I ask only two words: SO WHAT?! Whether Nintendo likes it or not, the gaming community is taking their conversations online. If Nintendo doesn’t get with it, they are going to be left in a place where no amount of waggle is going to be able to save them. If Nintendo would back a method of online communication and people will use it. My brother and I were playing The Conduit a while back, and he made the comment to me, “Wow, this works a lot better than I expected. Too bad no other games use this. It would be great.”
Now, let us enter a theoretical world where Nintendo understood what online gaming in 2009 was about (I know, its scary, but we’ll do it together). What would this game be like? First off, let me come back to where I said I was going to. Sure, Pokemon is about trading. After all, you’ve gotta catch ‘em all! However, upon purchasing Pokemon Platinum I began looking into the world of competitive battling. I was absolutely amazed by the community that ALREADY EXISTS, providing each other with in depth strategies, team building guides, and even communities with their own group of gym leaders that members could challenge to obtain badges on their message boards (like over at Pallet Tribune). Pokemon has its own place over at Game Battles for goodness sake. Nintendo needs to take a look at what their community wants and give them a place to do all of this where they might be able to profit from it.
Have the initial game experience similar to the other Pokemon RPGs. I honestly don’t think that it would even matter if this was a full 3D game, or stick to the 2D format thrown onto Wii (a little upgraded would be nice though). As the player goes through their adventure, they would run along side other players roughly their same level, and they could battle each other. After obtaining all the badges, you could have additional leagues (even ones composed of players as gym leaders if you wanted), or cool missions. Team Rocket is back from the dead and going to blow up the Earth unless you rally a group of ten Pokemon trainers and go beat them down! Go on a quest to capture a super rare Pokemon. The possibilities are limitless, and could be a 100% natural progression of the Pokemon franchise.
The emphasis on “real-world communication” instead of online communication is hindering the Pokemon franchise, not enhancing it. As soon as they realize this, I’m sure we’ll hear that the Pokemon MMO is underway.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?!
October 17th, 2009 at 12:04 am
A mmo wood work great. I just hope they fix it so they make it that u cant cheat. I traded in my daimond and platium because of cheaters. Nintendo needs to be strict with that before attempting an mmo
October 17th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I’ll be honest, I really haven’t played a Pokemon game in a while, they just don’t appeal to me as they once did since its the same thing: walking around fighting the computer. However I’ve always been hoping for an official Pokemon MMO (there have been a few unofficial ones which aren’t very good). I would love to play it because at least I not only get to battle computer controlled characters, but also other people and actually get experience from the battles.
Of course things in the game would have to be a bit different. For example. If you battle a Pokemon near Palette Town and your 6 Pokemon are level 100, then the one you are battling should be an average of that, in this case it would be level 100. The same thing would go for gym leaders and other computer controlled characters.
A game like that would revitalize the Pokemon genre, and Nintendo really needs to consider it.
October 17th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Just one thing to say: Nintendo is allowing itself to loose a big, a huge, a giant opportunity, and the worse part of it, all of us too. Really sad…
October 17th, 2009 at 10:50 am
I would rather have a zelda-like action adventure pokemon game. One where you could control all the different pokemon and use their abilities in real time to fight enemies and overcome obstacles.
And it they won’t make it, then someone should make a pokemon rip-off that allows you to do that.
October 17th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I’d love to see a Pokemon MMO, I think it’d work really well. If they made a game identical to the DS games using polygons instead of sprites on the Wii and made it a MMO it’d be a day one purchase for me. There was a story a while ago they were looking for a way to make the series new and exciting again and this would be a great way. Maybe we’ll see it on the next gen handheld
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October 17th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I don’t think it’s such a good idea. It’s certainly cool in concept, but an MMO is a huge liability, and I don’t see Nintendo tackling that one. Beyond which, Nintendo has never been one to release games or extra content on a subscription model to begin with, so I see this as even less likely. I personally view an MMO as a huge financial risk, one that I don’t believe is worth taking. There may be a huge fanbase, but copy-pasting the core experience into an MMO format won’t, in my opinion, cause growth.
Pokemon absolutely has a huge universe, an awesome and large cast of characters, oodles and oodles of lore, and a gigantic fanbase. There are tons of possibilities, and I’m sure Nintendo and Pokemon Company are continuously exploring those. But a Pokemon MMO on Wii and its huge focus on the online experience is something that I believe Nintendo is not ready for or needs. There are plenty of Pokemon fans and enthusiasts who love to combat online, but I’m also willing to bargain that many, many more don’t care to, and if they do, they have Diamond/Pearl or Battle Revolution for that.
Finally, I’d like to mention that one thing Nintendo has continuously done with its WiFi games is to try to make the online experience as pleasant and unoffensive as possible. That is, as we know, limiting some forms of communication or adding ’safer’ alternatives. This helps protect the image and the value of their services. They have NOT backed out of this direction, and a Pokemon MMO like one people hope for here would not be created in that mindset.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I think my favorite part whenever there is the annual whine for a Pokemon MMO is the complete ignorance of other games that have been ruined by companies listening to their fans and turning longstanding series into MMORPGs. Like Phantasy Star and Final Fantasy XI.
They don’t see the risk in harming the brand for children, who are the main consumers, and want to HARDCORE the series up into an online subscription based service which the childrens wouldn’t or couldn’t be a part of. So the whole “BAWWW NINTENDO’S LOSING ME!” is crap because if they did do this MMORPG garbage, they WOULD lose their biggest audience, all for a chance to please some blogger.
Considering Pokemons’ Sales have gone up since last generation, I’d say Nintendo’s on the right track. and I win my bet with my buddy, because I bet him that if Nintendo ever were to put online into Pokemon, like they did with Diamond and Pearl, another fan would pop up and demand MMO crap. Yay, I got $5.
October 17th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Hmm. After reading some of the other comments, I’m not as sure about the success of a Pokemon MMO.
I’ll admit, I’m one who thinks it would be neat to control your customizable character and walk from Pallet Town to all the Gyms, catch and train up Pokemon (even having side options of the Contests and other things besides just battles). With such a solid foundation, I think it could be fairly easy to flesh the Pokemon world out and include a kind of quest system like the Manga and Show have done.
But, I can also see how content could run out fast. It’d be hard to keep a solid main storyline going besides the Team Rocket type mainstay.
Then again, if I really think about it, I don’t play Pokemon for the story really, I do it for the strategic battles and cool Pokemon teams I can set up.
I’ll leave it with an undecided. I’d like a Pokemon MMO, but it cannot be a shoddy thrown-together one. I want them to really take their time on it and make it great and fun for everybody, rather than get them to make a type of game they aren’t quite ready for.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:19 pm
I think a Pokemon MMO could work very well. Of course there are issues about how would you implement expansions or something similar.
As an MMO I would want to be able to visit all the regions established in the core franchise; Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh, as well as an exclusive region for the MMO. However once you clear the first region chances are high that you’re preferred team is already near level 100 and therefore there isn’t anymore progression. There would have to be some major tweaking to the experience levels needed to account for that, or raise the level cap by 100 for every region. For instance I start in the Johto region and I cap out by the time I fight that league, now I feel like starting the Kanto league, now my cap is raised to 200, 300 for Sinnoh, 400 for Hoenn, and 500 for that exclusive region. But then there’s another problem in that there is WAY to much leveling.
Other things is, how is the payment model going to be? Will players be able to buy time cards or will we need to give our credit card numbers, or will we be stuck having to buy a Wii Points card every month?
But it has the potential to be a great game in that we can choose what region we started in, there wouldn’t be the issue of having to pick wisely for the starter as later in the game the player could find a pack of Charmander running in the wild (although that would be a rare encounter). However, how would Legendary pokemon work. Would it be that each server will only spawn one Mewtwo every week so as to avoid a glut of everyone having a Mewtwo within the first month of the game going live.
There are so many things that would need to be worked out from a technical standpoint that we won’t be seeing one on the Wii or DS at all, considering a hard drive would probably be necessary to account for the DLC that the game would possibly have especially if they release an expansion pack to coincide with the next core entries in the handheld entries such as a Pearl/Diamond expansion that would’ve coincided with those two games releases.
Eitherway, if they focus and make a great Pokemon MMO, that would be the only way for me to play Pokemon, I wouldn’t go back to the handheld ones, although they could make it so that you could trade pokemon you have in your Online account with one of your DS game cards for Pokemon.