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 Lance845 wrote:
Pokemon, mario, legend of zelda, metroid, castlevania.

One of those is not like the others. One of those is now only pachinko machines.

Cronch wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Pokemon, mario, legend of zelda, metroid, castlevania.

One of those is not like the others. One of those is now only pachinko machines.

And Pokemon is facing some serious grumbling from the fanbase for the decision to not include the national 'dex. It was argued that it was so that the animations and models for the pokemon included could be made the best they could be, but then it was seen that some of them were really lazy and hadn't changed from Let's Go! which in turn were the same as from the games on the 3DS.

Honestly when you consider the insane revenue Pokemon games make its actually quite shocking how low tech their graphics and animations are in the majority of their games. Granted part of that is style and part the fact that they were mobile games for so long; but in general its shocking that they can't do more considering that they should have insane investment potential.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly when you consider the insane revenue Pokemon games make its actually quite shocking how low tech their graphics and animations are in the majority of their games. Granted part of that is style and part the fact that they were mobile games for so long; but in general its shocking that they can't do more considering that they should have insane investment potential.

Honestly, I think this is where Nintendo is right and everyone else is wrong.

Stop burning money on the graphics dragon. It's a big part imo of how Nintendo keeps their projects on a controlled budgeted that can produce a profit. The graphics dragon only ever wants more, and it doesn't actually improve gameplay past a certain point. Tomb Raider (2014) spend a few million dollars just to animated Laura's hair. Does anyone really care that much about Laura's hair? I don't. That money could have gone somewhere better, or even just not have been spent. Put the money where it actually matters and stop burning it on something no one will appreciate in a year.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Honestly when you consider the insane revenue Pokemon games make its actually quite shocking how low tech their graphics and animations are in the majority of their games. Granted part of that is style and part the fact that they were mobile games for so long; but in general its shocking that they can't do more considering that they should have insane investment potential.

Honestly, I think this is where Nintendo is right and everyone else is wrong.

Stop burning money on the graphics dragon. It's a big part imo of how Nintendo keeps their projects on a controlled budgeted that can produce a profit. The graphics dragon only ever wants more, and it doesn't actually improve gameplay past a certain point. Tomb Raider (2014) spend a few million dollars just to animated Laura's hair. Does anyone really care that much about Laura's hair? I don't. That money could have gone somewhere better, or even just not have been spent. Put the money where it actually matters and stop burning it on something no one will appreciate in a year.

I don't disagree with you on this. The problem with pokemon right now, is that they claimed they couldn't put all 800+ pokemon into the new game because of the time needed for modeling and rigging animations. But 90% of pokemon attack animations are the model bouncing forward and a quick graphic to imply contact was made.

 LordofHats wrote:
The graphics dragon only ever wants more, and it doesn't actually improve gameplay past a certain point.

Part of it is keeping up with everyone else.

I remember seeing one of the pre-prod versions of Milo and Kate (unreleased kinect launch title) and thinking there was no way they could release it alongside the other animal-based launch title kinectimals. There was nothing wrong with the graphics, and better fur shaders don't improve gameplay, but that wouldn't have stopped every video, review, screenshot, and first impression calling out how outdated it looked in comparison.

Considering that Pokemon games bring much less money than Pokemon merch, I think it's perfectly understandable that they're not investing too much into what's essentially an ad for their plushies, mugs, t-shirts and whatnots.

Cronch wrote:
Considering that Pokemon games bring much less money than Pokemon merch, I think it's perfectly understandable that they're not investing too much into what's essentially an ad for their plushies, mugs, t-shirts and whatnots.

They might bring less revenue but we are still talking about games that sell into the millions of copies
And as noted above its not as if they've made any huge strides; in fact if you look at many of their games the actual core engine and designs haven't really changed a huge amount from their Gameboy days. Heck the AI in most still just picks random to play each turn. Meanwhile combat is still the same. Part of that is keeping it all backward compatible which is freaking awesome in todays market (or at least forward compatible). that's where the new Switch game is letting them down its not being as forward compatible as the previous games.

Thing is I think that they are suffering both a design shortfall and the issue that with over 800 monsters they are finding it harder to give each one its own niche and focus beyond visual appeal.


That said honestly I expect them to patch/mod/dlc in more pokemon to the game on the Switch; it just makes sense esp in light of the feedback.


Personally what shocks me more is that Pokemon, for all its millions of units sold and its really simple formula, hasn't really got any competition. Almost any other game that made that much money would have a litany of other games copycatting it. Yes Pokemon only really has Digimon in the same market.


so not only is it a game that hasn't really changed its also a game that hasn't really found itself with much competition to force it to change all that much. This is odd considering that the game is still targeted at kids (A continually renewable market which I think is part why it keeps going strong) and that the adult market hasn't picked up its own monster battling games; since there's clearly a massive adult market interested in the game.

 Overread wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Considering that Pokemon games bring much less money than Pokemon merch, I think it's perfectly understandable that they're not investing too much into what's essentially an ad for their plushies, mugs, t-shirts and whatnots.

They might bring less revenue but we are still talking about games that sell into the millions of copies
And as noted above its not as if they've made any huge strides; in fact if you look at many of their games the actual core engine and designs haven't really changed a huge amount from their Gameboy days. Heck the AI in most still just picks random to play each turn. Meanwhile combat is still the same. Part of that is keeping it all backward compatible which is freaking awesome in todays market (or at least forward compatible). that's where the new Switch game is letting them down its not being as forward compatible as the previous games.

Thing is I think that they are suffering both a design shortfall and the issue that with over 800 monsters they are finding it harder to give each one its own niche and focus beyond visual appeal.


That said honestly I expect them to patch/mod/dlc in more pokemon to the game on the Switch; it just makes sense esp in light of the feedback.


Personally what shocks me more is that Pokemon, for all its millions of units sold and its really simple formula, hasn't really got any competition. Almost any other game that made that much money would have a litany of other games copycatting it. Yes Pokemon only really has Digimon in the same market.


so not only is it a game that hasn't really changed its also a game that hasn't really found itself with much competition to force it to change all that much. This is odd considering that the game is still targeted at kids (A continually renewable market which I think is part why it keeps going strong) and that the adult market hasn't picked up its own monster battling games; since there's clearly a massive adult market interested in the game.

Probably got to do with the relativew cheap price on it, quality standardised formulae that works by Nintendo and the fact it is quasi the OG, ergo it successfully brought itself into a positio of what is essentially total market dominance.

Personally what shocks me more is that Pokemon, for all its millions of units sold and its really simple formula, hasn't really got any competition

But it does, it's just that those games never reach 1/10th of Pokemon's popularity. There was Yokai Watch, and other stuff I can't remember anymore...which sort of shows how hard it is to break their domination. As NotOnline said, they got to the formula first and managed to hit the jackpot with it. Young kids are introduced to it via parents/older siblings who watched it as kids, and once the emotional connection is there, it's so much harder to just drop it and pick a different franchise to care for.

From my view point its not even that other games don't get to the 1/10th position its that they don't even seem to make it mainstream - at least in the EU market (the Japan market might be very different).


They don't all have to be best sellers, but you'd imagine with such a simple and successful formula that there would be some other well known names besides Digimon. Certainly a few from more recent generation. If you look at almost any other major game or franchise there are loads of copy-cats many of which never make it big but there's normally a good handful that you can spot which make it big enough to have a decent exposure on the market.

 Overread wrote:


Personally what shocks me more is that Pokemon, for all its millions of units sold and its really simple formula, hasn't really got any competition. Almost any other game that made that much money would have a litany of other games copycatting it. Yes Pokemon only really has Digimon in the same market.

Yo Kai watch made an effort, but I think it fell off pretty quickly. There were a solid 6 months though where it was outselling pokemon merch.

balmong7 wrote:

I don't disagree with you on this. The problem with pokemon right now, is that they claimed they couldn't put all 800+ pokemon into the new game because of the time needed for modeling and rigging animations. But 90% of pokemon attack animations are the model bouncing forward and a quick graphic to imply contact was made.

As long as any Pokemon can technically use any move, the options for animations are going to be somewhat limited unfortunately. The game pretty much has to play a generic animation with special effects layered on top until they start putting some real limits on movepools.

This isn't the first time we've seen the move to 3D animation require limiting the content in the games; its just the first time its hit the main series. For example, the original Pokemon Stadium in Japan only had 41 Pokemon available and those early models were still in use at least as far out as the Colosseum games while they continually added to their library. I'm a little surprised they're not just reusing the Sun & Moon skeletons though.

 LunarSol wrote:

balmong7 wrote:

I don't disagree with you on this. The problem with pokemon right now, is that they claimed they couldn't put all 800+ pokemon into the new game because of the time needed for modeling and rigging animations. But 90% of pokemon attack animations are the model bouncing forward and a quick graphic to imply contact was made.

As long as any Pokemon can technically use any move, the options for animations are going to be somewhat limited unfortunately. The game pretty much has to play a generic animation with special effects layered on top until they start putting some real limits on movepools.

This isn't the first time we've seen the move to 3D animation require limiting the content in the games; its just the first time its hit the main series. For example, the original Pokemon Stadium in Japan only had 41 Pokemon available and those early models were still in use at least as far out as the Colosseum games while they continually added to their library. I'm a little surprised they're not just reusing the Sun & Moon skeletons though.

I'm not asking for personalized animations for every move. But I also don't want to see the animations being blamed for not having every pokemon when what they have can barely be called animation at all.

Gamefreak is acting like an indie dev. When they have the budget of a major studio. If they need more people to get the pokemon in the game. Then they should hire more people.

Amusingly enough - given their mature content (including things like Mara...) - the various Shin Megami Tensai and Persona games are arguably competitors of a sort. Now admittedly, people don't play these games purely for the "gotta catch 'em all" aspect. But it is an important part of the gameplay that keeps people playing.

Eumerin wrote:
Amusingly enough - given their mature content (including things like Mara...) - the various Shin Megami Tensai and Persona games are arguably competitors of a sort. Now admittedly, people don't play these games purely for the "gotta catch 'em all" aspect. But it is an important part of the gameplay that keeps people playing.

Whenever I recommend a persona game to someone I always say "the combat plays like pokemon, there are clear type advantages and disadvantages and you build your party to match it."

I think its a public excuse for a better reason. Triming the fat. There are more than enough pokemon in the games that transfering the rest is just a necesity to fill a log that looks neat but isnt actually any fun and necessitates filling the game with a laundry list of locations and items to get pokemon to change forms.

A lamp, a mossy rock, a icy rock, a mirror, disk drives, tablets, machines, meteorites, etc etc..

All so that THIS dex can have every pokemon in every form. feth that. Give me a tight balanced 300ish pokemon instead of the thousand that exist with all their baggage. And give the world its own unique landscape instead of squeezing in the gimmicks of the last 30 years.

The other issue is that because of the way they release pokemon and, especially, some of the limited ones. The more games they make the longer the daisy train is between games that have required pokemon that are unique to it; and the more pokemon that wind up being impossible to get through legit means for the player; excepting trading with those who breed them. Seriously you can go on ebay now and for a few £ you can get most of the limited exclusives from people doing just that for any who get games later and past the time when nitendo releases the time limited releases or who don't get to attend release events.

Though they could easily get around this by putting them all in one big massive super game.


I suspect they are trapped, wanting to cut some and at the same time required to add them to keep the continuity going. A break in that could easily dissuade a huge chunk of the market from "catch-em-all".


That said it could also be that they remove them now and then later we get a free or paid DLC block that adds them in. Perfectly possible and heck they might even bow to pressure and do that later; or release "Pokemon Shield/Sword Ultra" and do it that way.

I am mildly curious if they're truly not in the game or if they're not in the game the same way they weren't in Ruby/Sapphire.

 LunarSol wrote:
I am mildly curious if they're truly not in the game or if they're not in the game the same way they weren't in Ruby/Sapphire.

They have stated you will not be able to transfer pokemon from previous games into sword and shield unless that pokemon is in the Galar dex.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Honestly when you consider the insane revenue Pokemon games make its actually quite shocking how low tech their graphics and animations are in the majority of their games. Granted part of that is style and part the fact that they were mobile games for so long; but in general its shocking that they can't do more considering that they should have insane investment potential.

Honestly, I think this is where Nintendo is right and everyone else is wrong.

Stop burning money on the graphics dragon. It's a big part imo of how Nintendo keeps their projects on a controlled budgeted that can produce a profit. The graphics dragon only ever wants more, and it doesn't actually improve gameplay past a certain point. Tomb Raider (2014) spend a few million dollars just to animated Laura's hair. Does anyone really care that much about Laura's hair? I don't. That money could have gone somewhere better, or even just not have been spent. Put the money where it actually matters and stop burning it on something no one will appreciate in a year.

It isn't Nintendo's call. They only have 1/3 of the power over the Pokemon franchise. Also, it has been shown that Nintendo is all in on better animations considering both Pokemon Stadium games put out on major consoles had better graphics and animations than any Pokemon generation that has ever been put out.

Zelda can go big with open world, why not Pokemon? It made sense that they could get away with it on a handheld charging $40. But this is going to be a main console game at $60 and it honestly looks worse than the handheld games do. There are a lot of other big issues, such as adding in mechanics and then dropping them quick for no reason. Mega Stones were a great addition, now they are just a meh side thing nobody will use anymore.....

balmong7 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I am mildly curious if they're truly not in the game or if they're not in the game the same way they weren't in Ruby/Sapphire.

They have stated you will not be able to transfer pokemon from previous games into sword and shield unless that pokemon is in the Galar dex.

Being able to transfer at all is probably the more curious part of that. Gen3 had no compatibility at all.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Honestly when you consider the insane revenue Pokemon games make its actually quite shocking how low tech their graphics and animations are in the majority of their games. Granted part of that is style and part the fact that they were mobile games for so long; but in general its shocking that they can't do more considering that they should have insane investment potential.

Honestly, I think this is where Nintendo is right and everyone else is wrong.

Stop burning money on the graphics dragon. It's a big part imo of how Nintendo keeps their projects on a controlled budgeted that can produce a profit. The graphics dragon only ever wants more, and it doesn't actually improve gameplay past a certain point. Tomb Raider (2014) spend a few million dollars just to animated Laura's hair. Does anyone really care that much about Laura's hair? I don't. That money could have gone somewhere better, or even just not have been spent. Put the money where it actually matters and stop burning it on something no one will appreciate in a year.

It isn't Nintendo's call. They only have 1/3 of the power over the Pokemon franchise. Also, it has been shown that Nintendo is all in on better animations considering both Pokemon Stadium games put out on major consoles had better graphics and animations than any Pokemon generation that has ever been put out.

Zelda can go big with open world, why not Pokemon? It made sense that they could get away with it on a handheld charging $40. But this is going to be a main console game at $60 and it honestly looks worse than the handheld games do. There are a lot of other big issues, such as adding in mechanics and then dropping them quick for no reason. Mega Stones were a great addition, now they are just a meh side thing nobody will use anymore.....

I do think the biggest missed opportunity of Pokemon is that there isn't a full-blown MMO. The franchise is ripe for it, but Nintendo and its partners seem averse to mixing the formula up that much. Yes, there's pokemon go. Don't care. It's not the same thing. I think Nintendo risks losing out big time by passing this over. TemTem have half a million as an under advertised "Not Pokemon" Pokemon game on Kickstarter alone and their art design is notably not as good as Pokemon's.

I've never thought the Pokemon formula really translates that well to an MMO, simply because there's not a lot of cooperation involved. You could make a really PVP heavy version of it, but I think people would quickly recognize the failings of the universe when you're really competing to the "the best".

Pokemon Go is probably the ideal MMO implementation of the concept, but it makes a ton of concessions to make it work. It's replaced the main games for me for that reason, but I keep hoping for the main games to get a huge shakeup to bring me back.

It would make a powerful MMO if done right. It just would need to be based around adventuring parties of Pokemon trainers. Either go it alone or form your own party for adventures into dark caves, over the high seas, in the skies etc... A wealth of minigames related to your pokemon as well as non combat related games and features such as running a breeding centre etc..

With the right team Pokemon lends itself fabulously to an MMO. The major issues though would be that its target market would be kids whilst adults would likely be a heavy influence so there'd be elements of having to deal with two very different user groups. You really can't have 30-40-50 year olds swearing like sailors around swear filters to kids 10 years old or not much older. Heck it might be the very reason that they've never done an MMO - though having said that minecraft appears to work and that has a similar age bracket spread; though that tends to work through private servers and private worlds rather than a free for all open setting.


Suffice it to say that the pokemon formula lends itself well to the structure of an MMO - the core issue would likely be community management and moderation.

Does it though? I mean what happens when the party encounters a Pokemon? Are they just essentially a loot roll or do you have to start having Pokemon herds so everyone has something to fight/catch.

I'm not saying it can't work. The game is loaded with multiplayer elements that feel natural to have multiple players controlling. I just don't think the core experience, but with other people, works as well in practice as it feels like it should and needs a lot of significant little changes to work.

 LunarSol wrote:
Does it though? I mean what happens when the party encounters a Pokemon? Are they just essentially a loot roll or do you have to start having Pokemon herds so everyone has something to fight/catch.

If it were me? Generic "questing" and catching Pokemon would still be a primarily solo event. Someone could come along to help, but as in the Pokemon world, a player would need to catch their own mon. I see no reason to alter this from the basic formula. Contrary to the idiocy of some MMO developers, not everything in an MMO needs to be group-based. In fact, making everything in an MMO group based is generally detrimental to design. There are times where people just want to play alone, or who like being in a world full of other people they don't play with (cause some people are weird).

Really, the strength of an MMO set in Pokemon would be its ability to be "low system requirements" and "mechanically broad but simple." Like the handheld games themselves. I'd focus such a game heavily on seasonal events, a regular cycle of PVP and PVE world quests that present new and unique challenges for players that they can tackle on their own or in groups. You could have solo, team, and battle royal tournaments regularly, raids in the form of fighting a Team or dealing with angry Pokemon/legendaries who are upset or whatever. The potential is limitless.

It creates a basic and repeatable play cycle: catch mon and play story mode solo/in small groups with friends and engage in world events with large groups of players. The expansions practically write themselves. Make the system flexible enough, and you could do all kinds of things like capture the flag or king of the hill tournament (shuckle would finally be good at something), little league tournaments for unevolved pokemon.

I'd pay a subscription for that game if they did it right. Maybe even if they didn't.

I'd probably build a whole new battle system, cause the Pokemon battles of the Handhelds do not translate well into an MMO space, which I think is actually the biggest challenge (you probably wouldn't be able to include every mon on release).

To be sure, if you try to make "World of Pokemon" you're probably going to fail. A Pokemon MMO would need to adjust for the variety of audience it would draw, and for the unique expectations people would have of such a game. You can't just build it like WoW or Guild Wars (though Guild Wars' event system would probably work pretty well for it).

 LordofHats wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Does it though? I mean what happens when the party encounters a Pokemon? Are they just essentially a loot roll or do you have to start having Pokemon herds so everyone has something to fight/catch.

If it were me? Generic "questing" and catching Pokemon would still be a primarily solo event. Someone could come along to help, but as in the Pokemon world, a player would need to catch their own mon. I see no reason to alter this from the basic formula. Contrary to the idiocy of some MMO developers, not everything in an MMO needs to be group-based. In fact, making everything in an MMO group based is generally detrimental to design. There are times where people just want to play alone, or who like being in a world full of other people they don't play with (cause some people are weird).

Really, the strength of an MMO set in Pokemon would be its ability to be "low system requirements" and "mechanically broad but simple." Like the handheld games themselves. I'd focus such a game heavily on seasonal events, a regular cycle of PVP and PVE world quests that present new and unique challenges for players that they can tackle on their own or in groups. You could have solo, team, and battle royal tournaments regularly, raids in the form of fighting a Team or dealing with angry Pokemon/legendaries who are upset or whatever. The potential is limitless.

It creates a basic and repeatable play cycle: catch mon and play story mode solo/in small groups with friends and engage in world events with large groups of players. The expansions practically write themselves. Make the system flexible enough, and you could do all kinds of things like capture the flag or king of the hill tournament (shuckle would finally be good at something), little league tournaments for unevolved pokemon.

I'd pay a subscription for that game if they did it right. Maybe even if they didn't.

I'd probably build a whole new battle system, cause the Pokemon battles of the Handhelds do not translate well into an MMO space, which I think is actually the biggest challenge (you probably wouldn't be able to include every mon on release).

To be sure, if you try to make "World of Pokemon" you're probably going to fail. A Pokemon MMO would need to adjust for the variety of audience it would draw, and for the unique expectations people would have of such a game. You can't just build it like WoW or Guild Wars (though Guild Wars' event system would probably work pretty well for it).

A couple of things. . . I for one love a lot of the single-player elements of STO. It isn't so much playing an MMO to "be alone" more like. . . playing a solo game where you're also chatting/BSing with a community (just the way the game is set up really lends itself to predominately single player activity).


I think a hurdle for any Pokemon MMO is indeed the pokemon and the battle system in itself. . . Every single MMO I've ever played has an item rarity system, and surely Pokemon would be no different. Would the devs make the poke gear (balls, bait, repel, health pots, etc) rarity leveled, or do you make the mon themselves rarity locked? Or, do you create a bizarre system wherein your "in play" pokemon has gear slots with those gear items being rarity graded?

And then there's the battling system as well. As is rightly pointed out, the turn-based JRPG style combat typically doesn't translate well in an MMO, however the stadium-esque "thing" with trainers calling out attacks is a fairly important part of the world (I think the scene in Detective Pikachu may be a "decent" workaround). So, would players control a single Mon in real time so that its something more like a cross between WoW and Mortal Kombat?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Does it though? I mean what happens when the party encounters a Pokemon? Are they just essentially a loot roll or do you have to start having Pokemon herds so everyone has something to fight/catch.

If it were me? Generic "questing" and catching Pokemon would still be a primarily solo event. Someone could come along to help, but as in the Pokemon world, a player would need to catch their own mon. I see no reason to alter this from the basic formula. Contrary to the idiocy of some MMO developers, not everything in an MMO needs to be group-based. In fact, making everything in an MMO group based is generally detrimental to design. There are times where people just want to play alone, or who like being in a world full of other people they don't play with (cause some people are weird).

Really, the strength of an MMO set in Pokemon would be its ability to be "low system requirements" and "mechanically broad but simple." Like the handheld games themselves. I'd focus such a game heavily on seasonal events, a regular cycle of PVP and PVE world quests that present new and unique challenges for players that they can tackle on their own or in groups. You could have solo, team, and battle royal tournaments regularly, raids in the form of fighting a Team or dealing with angry Pokemon/legendaries who are upset or whatever. The potential is limitless.

It creates a basic and repeatable play cycle: catch mon and play story mode solo/in small groups with friends and engage in world events with large groups of players. The expansions practically write themselves. Make the system flexible enough, and you could do all kinds of things like capture the flag or king of the hill tournament (shuckle would finally be good at something), little league tournaments for unevolved pokemon.

I'd pay a subscription for that game if they did it right. Maybe even if they didn't.

I'd probably build a whole new battle system, cause the Pokemon battles of the Handhelds do not translate well into an MMO space, which I think is actually the biggest challenge (you probably wouldn't be able to include every mon on release).

To be sure, if you try to make "World of Pokemon" you're probably going to fail. A Pokemon MMO would need to adjust for the variety of audience it would draw, and for the unique expectations people would have of such a game. You can't just build it like WoW or Guild Wars (though Guild Wars' event system would probably work pretty well for it).

A couple of things. . . I for one love a lot of the single-player elements of STO. It isn't so much playing an MMO to "be alone" more like. . . playing a solo game where you're also chatting/BSing with a community (just the way the game is set up really lends itself to predominately single player activity).


I think a hurdle for any Pokemon MMO is indeed the pokemon and the battle system in itself. . . Every single MMO I've ever played has an item rarity system, and surely Pokemon would be no different. Would the devs make the poke gear (balls, bait, repel, health pots, etc) rarity leveled, or do you make the mon themselves rarity locked? Or, do you create a bizarre system wherein your "in play" pokemon has gear slots with those gear items being rarity graded?

And then there's the battling system as well. As is rightly pointed out, the turn-based JRPG style combat typically doesn't translate well in an MMO, however the stadium-esque "thing" with trainers calling out attacks is a fairly important part of the world (I think the scene in Detective Pikachu may be a "decent" workaround). So, would players control a single Mon in real time so that its something more like a cross between WoW and Mortal Kombat?

Why would you need to follow what anyone else has done?

I have thought about a Pokemon MMO before. Here is what I would do.

-Character creation involves picking home region and "class".

--Home region decides your starting town, and the first pokemon league you need to beat before venturing out into the larger world.

--Your class is either one of the Pokemon types or a generic all encompassing type. Choosing a Type gives you a small bonus to Exp when raising that specific type of Pokemon and a penalty to it's weakness types. I.E. If you pick Dragon Trainer you get a +10% Exp for Dragon Types and a -5% to Faerie Types or some gak. It also grants you access to some TMs (thinking 3-5 and includes the ultimate moves of whatever type it is) that are otherwise not available. Which makes trading for a dragon type with a TM that you can't get access to valuable and encourages the trading economy within the game. Choosing the Generic trainer type gives you a 5% Exp bonus to all pokemon types and maybe a Bonus to breeding or a 2% chance for rarer pokemon to pop up in random battle or some gak but you get no access to the TMs the other trainer types get. The point being to get trainers reliant on other trainers to breed and raise the best possible pokemon. Nobody can do it all on their own.


-You then do the typical game of traveling around your region, getting 8 badges. Once you have earned your 8th badge you can fight the league/champion as per normal. Beating the elite 4 opens up the access to other regions. Beating the CHampion gets you access to new items or whatever in shops.

-The moment you leave your starting area and enter a new region your pokemons stats scale to your # of badges in the new area. You need to earn the badges again to scale them back up so you can face the next league. (At no badges they will be roughly equivalent to level 12ish, 1 badge up to 20 etc etc... until the 8th badge allows them to be full power again). You keep your moves and everything but the stats are those of a lower level version of your pokemon.

-Legendary Pokemon and rare pokemon will be location or region wide events that get trainers hunting all over the place for the fethers and more or less act as raid content.

-Different teams would make trouble in different parts of the world and the general story of that region would unfold as normal. But also OTHER teams could show up in different regions tied to events. Pokebucks, rare pokeballs/items are rewards and maybe even pokemon.


So, base line leveling up/game play involves a mix of completing Pokedexes, breeding, and raising and training pokemon. Earning badges and beating leagues.
Then, you have the side games of beauty contests, dress ups, battle towers, pvp, whatever..
Then you get the end game of really breeding and raising the best teams which are inherently a group activity because of the way the class system works.
Then there is the difficulty of hunting down legendaries. No give aways. You gotta earn them.
Expansions add new regions which open up new areas with more Pokemons to get. - This could also include things like the portals and gak.

 LordofHats wrote:
I do think the biggest missed opportunity of Pokemon is that there isn't a full-blown MMO. The franchise is ripe for it, but Nintendo and its partners seem averse to mixing the formula up that much.

Their current business model is selling pokemon over and over again, once a year like a sports franchise. I guess they might be worried about an MMO being a single purchase that players burn out on.