Rax wrote:
I have never thought of it being a mmorpg... But I'm intrigued now.
I am going to use this as an excuse to go on a rant. This issue has been bothering me ever since it occurred to me.
I want to explain just why Pokemon is the perfect MMO franchise, far more suitable than something like Warcraft.
The reason is that, in most RPG settings, you play as a band of unlikely heroes with special powers whose goal is to save the world. This type of RPG is difficult to turn into an MMO, because not everyone can be a renowned hero! World of Warcraft suffers from this problem, and ends up seeming very improbable.
In Pokemon, you are just some guy, and your goals are the same goals that thousands of other people in the world have! Even better, more than one person can achieve these goals! The goals are things like:
- beat all the gym leaders.
- become a renowned battler.
- become a renowned breeder.
- record all Pokemon into your Pokedex.
- catch all of the Pokemon.
- help to battle the evil forces.
- become rich.
What if the Elite 4 and the gym leaders actually were
veteran players who had earned this honour, and who had to obey certain rules in order to allow a semi-competent trainer to earn badges and rewards from them? What if there was that one guy who is
the guy who caught Articuno? He could sell Articuno for a lot of money, or maybe the legendaries would escape from their owners every now and then. Or maybe you can't catch the legendaries at all, but you can "encounter" them for Pokedex entries, and you earn achievements by defeating them.
The world is already a perfect MMO world. It's huge, it's split up into different "regions", and there are reasons that you would want to visit each region. (To catch the Pokemon that live there!) There are even totally natural "limits" that allow you to explore more and more of the world as you become more powerful. (Flying on a flying Pokemon! Swimming on a water Pokemon! Using Pokemon to cut down trees that regrow so that other players can't get through!)