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« on: February 17, 2003, 02:07:50 PM »
I'll admit that I have very limited experience with Pokemon; I have played Pokemon Yellow and Pokemon Snap. But this thread has got me thinking, and I believe I have some interesting ideas as to what to do with the Pokemon franchise on GameCube. I understand that what I've come up with here is a bit different from the average Pokemon game, but I think it's time to steer the franchise in a fresh direction, at least for one game.
- The game should be a massively-multiplayer online RPG. A person would create their trainer by choosing a name, and customizing the clothes, face, body type, etc. Upon starting the game, you would be put into a huge world (much like Everquest I suppose) where you can travel to different towns and battle trainers there. Players could choose to be a trainer, or perhaps they could be a Pokemon doctor and open a hospital, etc, etc. There could be many professions that fit in the world of Pokemon that a player could choose. There would have to be some kind of currency, so players can purchase things. Players should also be allowed to form "clans".
- Towns should be set up like this: a group of players pool together their money to buy pre-designated "town sites" where a town can be built. There would be small, medium, and large town sites, each larger one naturally costing more money. They could then allow people to build shops, hotels, hospitals, training gyms, etc. at their discretion. The town's owner(s) would have to know a person to let them build in the town, assuring that pranksters don't run amok and also building a better sense of community. The town's owner(s) would have other similar powers, such as being able to ban an unruly player from their town.
- The towns would be allowed to have certain types of buildings according to how large of a town site they're on. The "small" towns could only have some houses, a hospital, etc., while a "large" town could have taller buildings, a stadium, etc. The towns with stadiums could advertise and hold periodical Pokemon tournaments that players could travel to participate in. Each town would be required to have a message board that messages from all towns are displayed on so that no matter where a player is currently at, he can see where tournaments are being held, when a new town is established, who won the latest tournament, etc etc. A private messaging system between players would be great also so you can meet up with friends. Also, a system would have to be in place so people could show their trophies, Pokemon, etc. to friends.
- When traveling across the countryside from town to town, random battles can occur if you want them to. It should be an option in the menu as to whether or not you want random battles. I think the turn-based battle system should stay, because that's really what makes the game Pokemon, but I'm not completely decided on this subject yet. A real-time battle system would have its advantages, such as a Zelda-style fighting setup. Keeping on the same road here and assuming that the game did have real-time battles, you should be able to accumulate a set number of attacks and assign which four or five you want to use to specific buttons. You would not be permitted to change this during your battles, so you would have to choose carefully.
- Nintendo could even set up some Nintendo-sponsored events such as a "Pikmin II Pokemon Tournament". They would pay a town a certain fee (in game currency, obviously) to use their stadium for the tournament, so it would encourage people to keep their towns nice and to make them attractive. Keeping the example of a "Pikmin II Pokemon Tournament", a Pikmin trophy would be given out, assuring that a huge amount of players show up to duel for the prize. Taking advantage of this, Nintendo could stream ads onto billboards in the stadium for new games, products, or whatever, and they would been seen by a large number of people. It seems like quite the marketing scheme to me.
I believe that taking the Pokemon formula and applying it to a MMORPG is a great idea. It would satisfy Pokemon fans, MMORPG fans, and people who just want an online game from Nintendo. I do not like Pokemon at all, but I would be very interested in something like this. What do you guys think?
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