What if....

[Serenade]

(What if) ...Nintendo was more like Valve when it came to the Pokemon series developement?

TF2, one of valves best games, is notably one of the most balanced first person shooters currently played. Pokemon, as of generation IV(Generation V will likely be no different), is not. The majority of pokemon are considered into the tier of NFE, meaning outclassed by itself in a latter evolution. And even then, of all the fully evolved pokemon, many are still all but unusable in the metagame, while a select few are so widely known for their attacking prowess, that they are close to the only thing usable, and an even more select few has been rated as uber, meaning they have been removed due to being over powered.

Pokemon games, by nature, are landlocked to there respective game cartridge. A platinum game will always have the same glitches, same movesets, and pokemon within it, as will any pokemon game.

Valve's games, in opposition are not. TF2 has experienced a massive amount of tweaks, and play testing to make it as balanced as it is today. Even portal and Half Life, receive updates on occasion, to fix bugs via the internet.

I know what you're probably thinking- The DS has VERY limited wi-fi, and fails with many connections. Who made the DS? Nintendo did. Are there other devices that connect with ease that makes the DS laughable? Easily. Had nintendo made it a more regular habit to be able to receive its own wifi, they too could have found a way to make it where updates were plausible. A ROM image of a pokemon game is tiny, compared to the amount of data storable in a memory card the size the DS takes. I have a 1 gig one, and even it is bigger than an entire game- updates wouldn't be hard at all, nor would they hinder the game if they couldn't be received, you'd just find a way or place to sync up, or even sync to another game.

Another thing is community content. Nintendo admittedly created all the pokemon in generation V. Valve has allowed many new creations directly into the game, straight from the community. After all, what better way to create things people like and want, then to induct creations from the creators into the game itself? Many people dislike pokemon because of what they consider "bad designs". I would agree, that many, if not most, of the community pokemon creations are far better than what Nintendo itself comes up with. Take Mamanbou for example. Is there a real reason we don't just make it evolve from luvdisc? In the long run, no. In the short run, it would make Generation V have no evolutions, or pre-evolutions added whatsoever. I kind of take it as an insult to one of my favorite water types I can't use. Has luvdisc been forgotten by Nintendo? Seeing its new ability in the dreamworld- Hydration, not helping it makes me almost believe they have forgotten it. Another example is Carvannah and Sharpedo. Nintendo made a look alike for them as well, even though it could have easily been related in some way, and would have been practical for it to have been as well.

So what if Nintendo had put more potential into making, testing, and balancing the games, like Valve does with its games? Would pokemon be improved? Or would it be hurt by these changes?

[pokemoneinstein]

Well I think that community designs would not help the games, because Nintendo would have to regulate it. And if the Nintendo-made Pokémon look like that, they will probably choose similar fan creations.

But anyway, don't forget that the Afro Bull could easily be an evolution of Tauros. I mean it looks almost exactly the same, for God's sake.

[Serenade]

Originally Posted by pokemoneinstein

Well I think that community designs would not help the games, because Nintendo would have to regulate it. And if the Nintendo-made Pokémon look like that, they will probably choose similar fan creations.

What if Nintendo put a vote out on the internet for community pokemon?

[pokemoneinstein]

Originally Posted by Serenade

What if Nintendo put a vote out on the internet for community pokemon?

That would be cool, I'd like that.

[AnathemA]

If Nintendo was like Valve, We'd still be waiting for Pokemon Yellow.


All jokes aside, I feel that Nintendo should take a page out of Valve's books. They need more interaction with fans, and take the opinions of the fans more seriously. Not once have i found a Garrys Mod video slapped with copyright infringement, but a mere 5 second clip of the anime in a user video makes Nintendo jump out of their seats. They should see it as free advertising, not copyright infringement.

[Quadcentruo]

Comparing Valve to Nintendo (or TF2 to Pokemon) is like comparing the Halo series to the Tetris.

Those games have NOTHING in common except for the fact that they are both games.

And plus, if Nintendo changed up Pokemon every game, it would lose a lot of fans.

[Serenade]

Originally Posted by Quadcentruo

Comparing Valve to Nintendo (or TF2 to Pokemon) is like comparing the Halo series to the Tetris.

Those games have NOTHING in common except for the fact that they are both games.

And plus, if Nintendo changed up Pokemon every game, it would lose a lot of fans.

How so? They are both companies. They both make games.

[Quadcentruo]

They both make different style of games. That is the big difference of the two companies. I've never seen a FPS game made by Pokemon that was based around stay alive and kill enemies.

Also, I said comparing TF2 to Pokemon is a bad idea because that would be like comparing Halo to Tetris; those two have only ONE thing in common - they are both games.

If you said something like, "Why doesn't Nintendo do the same thing that SquareSoft/Squarenix does with the final fantasy series and change up the story every game?", that would make slightly more sense (even though Final Fantasy isn't the best example I probably could've come up with).

[Alakazamaster]

Originally Posted by Serenade

(What if) ...Nintendo was more like Valve when it came to the Pokemon series developement?

TF2, one of valves best games, is notably one of the most balanced first person shooters currently played. Pokemon, as of generation IV(Generation V will likely be no different), is not.

Well its not even a first-person shooter, but I see the point your getting at regarding balance.

The majority of pokemon are considered into the tier of NFE, meaning outclassed by itself in a latter evolution. And even then, of all the fully evolved pokemon, many are still all but unusable in the metagame, while a select few are so widely known for their attacking prowess, that they are close to the only thing usable, and an even more select few has been rated as uber, meaning they have been removed due to being over powered.

Team Fortress 2 has 9 characters. 9. There 9 characters were even made to rely on each other and work completely as a team, (and be equally balanced in terms of abilities) since TF2 as a whole is a team-based FPS, as we both know, and involves working together with other real-life people. Pokemon does not have 9 characters you take control of, it has 493. Pokemon is not a FPS. Pokemon does not have you working with other against another group of people. Certain Pokemon were even made to be less powerful than others, as we can tell from stats. RPGs like Pokemon which have stats are very different in terms of gameplay to first person shooters such as TF2, because in TF2 the whole emphasis is moving like a perfectly oiled machine as a team, using each character as best as possible. Pokemon, however, is based on making a team of 6 Pokemon that are to work as perfectly as possible together, and to face another team of 6 that is supposedly just as capable. Your not relying on your team or on characters that are all really equally as useful, the whole playstyle is different.

I could ramble further on this, but the tl;dr is pretty much saying that the two game are completely different genres and have different playstyles, so comparing their competitive metagame gets you nowhere.

Pokemon games, by nature, are landlocked to there respective game cartridge. A platinum game will always have the same glitches, same movesets, and pokemon within it, as will any pokemon game.

Valve's games, in opposition are not. TF2 has experienced a massive amount of tweaks, and play testing to make it as balanced as it is today. Even portal and Half Life, receive updates on occasion, to fix bugs via the internet.

I'm actually asking this, but are these updates required once they become available if you want to play online? I honestly don't know, and am asking because I may have another point to make whether they are mandatory or not.

I can say, though, that updates are FAR easier on PC games, since they are only a click away, and if your playing a game that is exclusively online then its guaranteed that an update can be received. For the DS, though, it would be very hard to make sure every owner of a game got the update. And if bugs are the issue you are speaking about, the current Pokemon games don't exactly HAVE any bugs that need to be fixed, especially not in online play (disregarding Wifi failures obviously.)

I know what you're probably thinking- The DS has VERY limited wi-fi, and fails with many connections. Who made the DS? Nintendo did. Are there other devices that connect with ease that makes the DS laughable? Easily. Had nintendo made it a more regular habit to be able to receive its own wifi, they too could have found a way to make it where updates were plausible.

Like I implied earlier, not everyone with a DS has Wifi, essentially meaning you get two groups: one with updates and one without. How would offline play work if one party had the update and one didn't? I am not even sure what updates you are REFERRING to, which makes forming an argument a bit harder for me. Pokemon doesn't exactly have a whole ton of updates needed.

A ROM image of a pokemon game is tiny, compared to the amount of data storable in a memory card the size the DS takes. I have a 1 gig one, and even it is bigger than an entire game- updates wouldn't be hard at all, nor would they hinder the game if they couldn't be received, you'd just find a way or place to sync up, or even sync to another game.

Still kinda wondering how people would get these updates. You can't just walk out to one of the many "Update Stores" spread throughout the world.

Another thing is community content. Nintendo admittedly created all the pokemon in generation V. Valve has allowed many new creations directly into the game, straight from the community. After all, what better way to create things people like and want, then to induct creations from the creators into the game itself? Many people dislike pokemon because of what they consider "bad designs". I would agree, that many, if not most, of the community pokemon creations are far better than what Nintendo itself comes up with.

One key difference is the whole age difference. Its clear that TF2 has a much more mature audience then the Pokemon games, as far more younger children play Pokemon than TF2. So if Nintendo takes ideas for Pokemon, you essentially get the gemstones made by people who would actually be talented at making designs, surrounded by tons and tons of worthless rock made by not only children with poo designing ideas, but also anyone else who couldn't make a good Pokemon. It would take ages for Nintendo to find any good Pokemon if this actually happened, which then brings me to my earlier point: "What if not everyone got the update?" which they certainly would not, as I also said earlier. If one cartridge has no way of recognizing a foreign object from another cartridge that got an "update" with one of these new Pokemon, what would happen? And "finding a way to make it work" is not a suitable response.

Take Mamanbou for example. Is there a real reason we don't just make it evolve from luvdisc? In the long run, no.

That's what they call an opinion. You and a bunch of other people wanting Luvdisc to evolve doesn't mean Nintendo should have to listen to your every need. If we listened to everything the fanbase said we would have a few Charizard evolutions, Mewthree, and 17 different Eeveelutions.

In the short run, it would make Generation V have no evolutions, or pre-evolutions added whatsoever.

Well that WAS what Game Freak was going for, as they even said... "A whole new experience"

I kind of take it as an insult to one of my favorite water types I can't use. Has luvdisc been forgotten by Nintendo? Seeing its new ability in the dreamworld- Hydration, not helping it makes me almost believe they have forgotten it.

Oooh lookie another opinion. Sure you like Luvdisc. Nintendo doesn't make games so that they take the opinion of every last person. Not even Valve does this. And if it makes you feel any better, NO ability would help Luvdisc due to its piss-poor stats.

Another example is Carvannah and Sharpedo. Nintendo made a look alike for them as well, even though it could have easily been related in some way, and would have been practical for it to have been as well.

See above.

So what if Nintendo had put more potential into making, testing, and balancing the games, like Valve does with its games? Would pokemon be improved? Or would it be hurt by these changes?

Hurt. Read everything above this to see why.

[Quadcentruo]

Serenade, I think your argument got shot down by Ala... Ala makes a very good point about everything.

You are just stating opinions, then again, that is what this thread is about.

Looking back on your post, you mentioned Pokemon games always having the same glitches because of their cartridges. Of course they are going to have the same glitches, you can't patch up glitches when you can't reach them - unlike TF2 and every other game by Valve. Besides, what does it matter that every Pokemon game will have the same glitches? As long as it doesn't completely ruin your game by beating down a Bidoof, you will be fine.

All this really seems to be is a rant against Nintendo for not changing anything in Pokemon. That is how Nintendo makes money, by sticking to what gives them money. All Nintendo has to do is switch up the story and setting in each game and they are good. When companies like Valve make changes, they are risking losing fans. Some fans don't like change to games they enjoyed, Nintendo obviously realizes this and doesn't change much in Pokemon games. The only two big differences between Pokemon games is more Pokemon and new location.

[Duran]

Note: He's talking about the way each company handles their game. It's purposely comparing apples to oranges. Like "What if the apple was orange and the orange was red?" type of deal.

Pokemon came out roughly 15 years ago. As such, downloadable content didn't exist, nor would it exist for quite a long time. When the idea of having one game that could be customized via patches was made into a reality, Pokemon had already settled into their way of doing things. The way Pokemon is set up will never change. Pokemon is basically Maple Story in terms of upgrading/adding things to the game. (I threw a lemon into this apple/orange comparison!)

Maple Story developers decided to create more classes as opposed to balancing the classes they have now. As such, half the classes they have are rendered useless, and the other half are over powered or close to being "just right". All the Pokemon we have also have the looooolimbalance thing going on. A Pokemon (and it's evolutions) sucked, so let's make a similar Pokemon that has better stats/a better movepool! Let's release it in another version! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Luckily, they had the sense to add evolutions in order to make SOME of the Pokemon better. Though the baby pokemon were kind of... Useless. I guess it was for the people who like cute things/breeding. Meh.

Realistically speaking, it would take quite some time to balance the Pokemon on paper. Though when it came to coding, it would simply take a few small code changes that would probably take less than a week to finish. (The codes for stats are all the same, the only difference is to which pokemon they are attached to... So it'd basically be a huge case of C/P-fever.)

ANYWAY!

Pokemon switching to downloadable patches/content is never going to happen. They would lose out on loads of sales via selling new games. They would also lose out on the possible merchandise sales they could make off the new game (IE: selling game guides, plushies, different looking cards of the same old pokemon, movies, different directions for the anime, etc.) It's not necessarily a greed type of thing, but there would be no point in switching to something that makes them less money just to be slightly more convenient. That's bad cookies in the business world. At least a baker's dozen of huge, moldy, glass-laden, stale cookies.


TL;DR
It'd be nice if Pokemon were like Valve in that one aspect. But they're not! The Pokemon franchise is still great, though.

[Quadcentruo]

I'm going to go with what AnathemA said about Nintendo being like Valve.

If Nintendo was like Valve, we would still be waiting for Pokemon Yellow. And there would be controversy if a sequel of a game comes out less than a year apart from each other (Left 4 Dead 2 controversy reference).

[Serenade]

Nintendo is putting Black and White onto the computer, giving pokemon abbilitys they wouldn't have, as well as forcing people to have wifi to collect more pokemon.

Is that any better than making the "competitive version" of pokemon balanced by having updates with newer content revolving around moves, abbilitys, etc?

And IF Luvdisc were to get the ability drizzle, learn fake out, baton pass/u-turn, counter, mirror coat and maybe some new move, it could become at least BL, as it could be used as a lead for drizzle, fake them out, and then counter a kill in, before baton passing/u-turning out of it all- to be called in for rain later.