Manly, a cappella background music.

The month of May is a busy one for the staff here at Gamer's Guide to Life.com. Some of us are bribing our landlords to renew leases, others are studying until their retinas crack for finals, and still more are putting in a final month's training with their leather-skinned, one-eyed archery coach, Ogedai, to prepare their bodies and souls for battle at the famous Nadaam festival, before flying to Ulanbaatar to vie for triumph on the international stage by competing in Mongolia's 'Three Manly Skills'^[1] , all in order to fulfil a promise made to a dying father to taste victory and be dubbed 'An Invincible Titan to be remembered by all'. Everyone's got something on their plate.

Amazingly, amidst all that chaos, we still find time in our evil staff room of evil to have important, potentially world-shaking discussions about gaming around the water cooler. The conversation recorded in this article between myself and SystemLink PlayStation Editor, Alex Wozniak, (with occassional interjection from GGTL Lead Editor, Linford Butler) begins as comical banter about the political danger of using Pokémon labour as a foundation for a specifically human bourgeois, but evolves into an interesting wish-list of features for a potential Pokémon-themed massively-multiplayer online game. We discuss gameplay, aesthetics, professions, items, settings, character creation, release console, and overall feasibility. It's a smooth, fun read for anybody who has played and loved a Pokémon title at any point in their lives.

Pull over most comfortable lounge chair, plop an oversized bowl of rare candy onto your lap, don your Pokémon Trainer cap, pour yourself a glass of that 1994 port that you've been saving, and read on, internet strangers, letting your imagination paint a picture of a socialist utopia wherein Pokémon take all of society's difficult jobs, providing a life of whimsy and relaxation for the human classes...


Greg:
If only we lived in that world. Pokémon taking all our bad jobs and looking after our every uncomfortable cultural need... Pokaridise.
Alex:
It would indeed be a better world - no need for electricity companies when there are Voltorbs and Zapdos', no need for gas firms when we train Charmanders to heat our homes.
Greg:
But what happens when that world is rocked by the demands of the Pokéunions?
Alex:
What, Team Rocket? They're a dastardly bunch who try to seduce us with talks of unionisation, and saving the Pokémon, when in fact all they do is enjoy a nice, expensive Slowpoke tail with tartare sauce in Giovanni’s mansion.
Linford:
Or the Pokélybians rise up? It could knock the Pokémiddleeast into chaos.
Alex:
Would the Amish have Pokémon? Would they be considered 'modern' technology?
Greg:
They'd only use basic Pokéballs. None of the Devil's fancy Masterballs.
Alex:
Lucifer haveth Masterballs? Damn him. Damn him to hell! ...again.
Greg:
Him and his psychic Pokémon... Only the Lord should be able to speak directly to the human brain. To steal His great power art a sin worthy of eternal punishment. (Tough luck, Alakazam).
Alex:
Is Mewtwo on the Devil’s side? I can't imagine Mew hanging out with the horned beast.
Greg:
Maybe Mew is basically the Virgin Mary, and Mewtwo is some sort of Pokémon antichrist... I want the dark, futuristic Pokémon game, wherein the Pokémon have turned the tables on humanity and enslaved them with their own Pokéball technology. You play an impressionable, conflicted Squirtle living after the Pokérevolution, who feels that what's being done to the now-enslaved human populace is as wrong as the sins brought down upon Pokémanity centuries before.
Alex:
Is he part of the Squirtle Squad? Because those bad boys knew how to give it to humanity.
Greg:
Yep. A corrupted, overweight Squirtle Squad that now does nothing but hang out in the local opium den and get friendly with human concubines.


Alex:
I want a Pokémon MMO - that would be pretty darn cool.
Greg:
Yeah, a Pokémon MMO has all the needed pieces for a great game.
Linford:
I see an article idea here... Discuss.
Greg:
Aye, aye. The Pokémon MMO:

642(ish) Pokémon, myriad zones, competition everywhere you look without needing set factions. Every player could just be a member of Pokémon society in the same way the original City of Heroes had all players on the same side, for one faction. That said, the ability for trainers to challenge other trainers offers a huge PvP environment. And if it's as balanced as handheld Pokémon tournament play, endgame PvP becomes more about skill and Pokémon selection than gear or stats, eliminating most typical MMO endgame problems...

Obtaining new outfits for both your trainers and your Pokémon could add an aspect of creative individualisation that MMO players crave as well. "Which Pikachu does Jimmy Random have?" "The one with the viking helmet and the tattoos of a human skull being torn apart by lightning on each cheek. He's a beast."
Alex:
A proper tournament league with Elite Four, and one Champion per realm would be pretty cool. It could still have the stats that a lot of MMO people want as well, by equipping Pokémon with various 'berries' or other fruits depending on what is relevant at that season.
Greg:
I like the idea of beating the Elite Four for each zone once a week in order to receive an invitation to a grand zone tournament with a unique aesthetic reward. Maybe the winner of that grand Pokémon weekly tournament gets to fly a giant noticeable plane for a week, gets a cool title, and an awesome costume to wear for the rest of his life. The gameplay model would likely support the idea of cultivating only one character, without alts.

If developers wanted to avoid that, they could add "Elite Aesthetic" (I'm big on those) differences for your character. Once you win the tournament, for example, your account unlocks a noticeably different trainer model to be used when creating a new trainer, and when beating the tournament (or maybe just the Elite Four) with that trainer, another model becomes available. So without making their Pokémon teams unbeatable (and therefore breaking the game's endgame balance), a player could show off his or her prowess by playing as a trainer model that only becomes attainable after doing so many things.


Alex:
People could take up different skills alongside their Pokémon. For example, crafting new Pokéballs, or becoming an expert breeder. Trainers could become professional explorers - by following ancient ruins and texts to find legendary Pokémon and Pokémon artifacts that could provide unique abilities to their team members.
Greg:
I like those profession ideas. Pokémon archaeology and exploration, ballcrafting, candy making, cooking - all of it could be useful. Maybe even a profession that focuses on creating unique modes of transportation (like bikes or jetskis, cars, hot-air balloons, et cetera).
Alex:
Guilds could work quite easily as well, I think, by having groups of trainers forming 'Teams' that could compete in competitions.
Greg:
Yeah, Teams would work really well here. Team Rocket, or Ash's group-style.
Alex:
It'd be quite an easy game to keep adding content to as well - new Pokémon, newly discovered areas, new Gym leaders, new moves.
Greg:
Seriously. The inevitable question that would have to be addressed would be how combat would play out... whether it's turn-based or some strange brand of live-action. Or maybe even a little of both. Maybe your trainer could "coach" difficult moves, causing the player to need to input combo keys (or buttons, if it's console) to help their Pokémon through it.
Alex:
I think it would be a mix of Pokémon and WoW, in that you send out your Pokémon, and its moves are on your Hotbar. You choose which abilities it uses, and it would only able to use a single move at a time, and each move has a cooldown.
Greg:
I’m not a huge fan of the WoW hotbar-and-cooldown gameplay style. It works, but it’s stale. Especially if the game was set on a console (and I'd guess Nintendo would be partial to that), it would need something a bit more unique. A lot would probably depend on whatever controls are given to the Super Nintendo Wii, whenever that comes out.
Alex:
Ah, I don't think it would work as well on a console. There's hardly any really successful console MMOs, and I just think the whole thing would be a lot smoother on PC. For one thing it will give the game longevity as you'd never have to upgrade your console to continue playing.


Greg:
Well, there comes our first hiccup... First of all, I'm of the camp that thinks a console MMOs will be huge (especially next generation, now that the current generation has normalised casual online console play) once designers see them as more than just ports from the PC. All it really requires is a unique, dedicated development philosophy tailored to a specific console (which Nintendo is famous for) and an intellectual property heavy enough to draw in millions of players, which Pokémon most definitely is. All that aside, any Nintendo product on the PC is little more than wishful thinking, be that unfortunate or not. They hold their intellectual property family tightly to their own hardware.
Alex:
I agree that there is potential for a console MMO to work, however, it'll have to be done extremely well to be able to sustain itself against WoW.
Greg:
I disagree again... I'm one of those who think that WoW is finally passing, like an ancient, rotting Sequoya barely able to stand upright but still towering over the rest of the forest, or a dying star. Cataclysm did a lot to hurt its cause. And, though I myself loved it for half a decade, twelve million people have been playing - and getting bored of - its model since 2004, which inversely means that there is an MMORPG playing demographic out there who would feasibly be very interested in jumping into a fresh AAA MMO title with a new style of play.
Alex:
Yet it [World of Warcraft] still has record number of players. The problem is that a lot of them are comfortable with WoW, too comfortable maybe, and it's going to take something huge to draw them away from something they've invested so much time in.
Greg:
People say that WoW has been given real competition since its foundation via Guild Wars, City of Heroes, and others, but I disagree. I don’t think it’s ever really been tested. To compete with Activision Blizzard, a gigantic, hard-hitting company and intellectual property need to enter the ring. Nintendo and Pokémon are one of the few combinations that could actually trump the Blizzard-Warcraft dreamteam of corporate star power, and it’s stylistically different enough that people might even play both - especially if a Pokémon MMO was free. There are plenty of people who own either an Xbox 360 or PS3 as well as a Wii. I think it could work in a very similar way.


Alex:
If it were free, it would have to be supported by ads, and I'm not sure how people would feel about it. If they could make it cheaper than WoW, then that would be good. What about a handheld Pokémon MMO? The set up is all there already on DS, they need only make it a consistent world.
Greg:
If it drove up console sales and people just paid for patches, I think Nintendo might be able to sustain it free of charge. Nintendo is large enough to front the money needed to sustain an MMO’s overhead and update costs while providing minimal company-wide financial strain, and the benefits of luring players over to their console's faction with a uniquely innovative blockbuster title like a Pokémon MMO would be appealing. The handheld MMO also makes a lot of sense, especially with how much focus the DS series has placed on Wi-Fi. I'm not sure the technology is there yet, but it just sounds like something Nintendo would do.
Alex:
Question is, though: would a Pokémon MMO replace the traditional single player games?
Greg:
Wow... that's a huge question. Unless they figured out a way to bring the two together (like they have with tournament living room console games using handheld hookups), I think they'd have to.
Alex:
I'm not so sure. You could have them exist in separate worlds. The MMO would be one world, with ever-newly discovered lands and Pokémon, with an emphasis on battling other players, and team battles, whilst the single player games would be where new mechanics were brought in, which after a while would migrate to the MMO, and provide more of a focus on story.
Greg:
That makes sense. If they did produce two separate worlds (MMO and continuation of the regular series via single-player), I think it would work more fluidly for the Nintendo brain trust to keep them on separate consoles.
Alex:
Huh. That might work.
Greg:
Alright, I need to find food. I'll save this conversation so we can unleash it on the world later.
Alex:
Be careful of wild Pokémon who may attempt to steal it.
Greg:
Lin: steal my Pokémon conversation and I'll... umm... be very angry. And miffed.


A new Super Nintendo Wii (Project Café) is coming out soon with enhanced multiplayer capabilities, HD graphics, and a vast, echoing hard drive. Just sayin'...

Footnotes

[1] Pony-wrasslin', snorkeling, and stealing brides from neighbouring China under the cover of darkness. [^]

Labels: 2011, 3DS, Alex Wozniak, Fireside Chat, Gaming Conversation, Greg Mengel, Linford Butler, MMO, Nintendo, Pokemon, The Pokemon Company, Wii

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