Today, we're bringing the 2nd instalment of our "Imagining MMOs" series. We just wanted to do this again, since it was extremely fascinating last time to make up an imaginary Harry Potter MMO game. This time, we're going to imagine and design a different kind of online game, which would utterly become a hit. Are there any Pokemon enthusiasts among our readers?
We can only guess the number of hands popping up and how many of you now carry on reading with excitement. Since initially appearing within the very first Pokemon title, these small pocket monsters from Nintendo have rapidly turned into a truly worldwide trend and have nearly become a religion for some of their fans. The franchise is at the moment still the 2nd most lucrative videogame franchise in the entire world, with Pokemons not only being present in videogames, but also in clothes, toys, trading card games, comics, anime, and so on.
However, apart from several unofficial browser titles made by fans, you won't find any true Pokemon MMO game on the market as of now, which is absolutely incomprehensible to us, since a game like this would probably be a huge success, making the one courageous enough to tackle the challenge of trying and developing a full featured Pokemon MMO title surely a rich person. So let us try to imagine how a Pokemon MMO could be like to fictionally design our personal hypothetical game.
So, let's start with the genre. In our opinion, a traditional MMO RPG formula would no doubt be the best option in this case and the original single player title already is a nearly perfect role model in terms of structure. We're already seeing an isolated settlement in our mind where you start out as a nobody to explore the entire game world brimming with other Pokemon trainer just like you. You adventure would begin with creating your avatar and selecting your starting Pokemon from a range of the most famous and favourite basic Pokemons before you would head off to your journey guided by a traditional quest-based system in old-school themepark style. Throughout your journey, you would assist villagers and other people with your pokemons and join other users from all across the globe as you explore more challenging in-game locations where the rarest and strongest Pokemons hide waiting to be captured. You could alternatively challenge other in duels to put yourself to a test and demonstrate who the best Pokemon trainer is. Perhaps we should add the opportunity to bet coins and Pokemons in order to spice up the whole thing even more?
Similar to the single player titles, every Pokemon would possess their personal set of moves, which would be become accessible step by step as players level them up, also allowing them to also modify them artificially by using technical items. Pokemons would moreover be able to only have a limited number of their skills loaded at any one time and players would be able to tweak their stats with items and training, meaning that different players could finally come up with 2 completely different examples of the very same Pokemon. Going without weapons and armour, players would be able to find items such as potions or charms and bracelets to equip their Pokemon with to enhance their skills or stats. It would also be possible to find or purchase cosmetic stuff, including accessories and clothes such as pants, hoodies or t-shirts, which would allow for making their characters look completely unique.
The game's PvE portion would primarily revolve around discovering and capturing the mightiest and rarest Pokemons, with the endgame focusing on the chase for Pokemons of legendary rarity. An interesting aspect would be that players would also be able to trade their Pokemons amongst each other, which would be emphasised by not enabling them to purchase or sell Pokemons for coins (other than items being eligible for auction house and direct trade), but only allowing trading Pokemons for other Pokemons. We're convinced that this would result in a unique "collection" flavour and trading card feel and would furthermore encourage players to personally interact with others. Specific Pokemons, which would become accessible in the later course of the game, could additionally serve as mount when players obtain a particular skill that would be more or less difficult to acquire. There would be basic ground mounts (like Rapidash perhaps?), swimming mounts and even flying ones, which would, of course, be the most difficult to acquire. Can you picture yourself floating through the skies aback your Charizard, waving to the players on the ground that follow your ride with jealousy in their eyes. Would that be an incomparably precious moment?
We would also implement another quite essential element of the single player titles: gyms and tournaments. Gyms could represent the factions that play a vital role in nearly any available MMO RPG. Our game would allow you to join a gym and wear its badge, simultaneously adding to your gym reputation a certain percentage of the EXP you’re earning while wearing your badge. This way, you would contribute to upholding your gym name as you engage in fights against members of rival gyms and earn additional reputation at the same time, which could then be used to acquire unique gym items, skills, Pokemons and more. We also think it would be a nice idea to have the gym member with the highest reputation become the gym leader or the deputy, with an NPC version of their character could automatically being placed in the gym HQ to welcome players and offer different services. And can you imagine how cool it would be to take part in periodically organised tournaments against other real-world players, perhaps sponsored and streamed as a full featured e-sport, with the chance to become renowned all across the globe?
We know that many players would like to maintain the simple old-school visual style with isometric view when it comes to visuals; we, however, think one should additionally aim at the widest audience possible and besides that, we’re benefiting from the fact of only imagining a hypothetical MMO, meaning that there wouldn't be any restrictions as to technology or even money. This would allow for opting for an awesome full 3-D in-game world with breathtaking animations and highly detailed cell-graphic visuals with an anime-style art direction. In contrast to the single player games, the wild Pokemons in our MMO game would resemble classic mobs in modern-day massively multiplayer online role-playing games, meaning they would be perceptible, roaming the in-game world, climbing trees, swimming in rivers and lakes, crawling in the green grass, etc.
As regards the combat system, in our opinion it would be a good idea to stick to the traditional turn-based combat from the original Pokemon titles, since this system seems to function just well, not going without dramatic changes of camera views, particularly more action and stunning animations, of course.
Furthermore, crafting would be another essential aspect of our MMO, which would enable players to produce their own clothing, vehicles such as bikes or rollerblades, different types of Pokeballs, technique teaching items, useful tonics and lots of other things that could then also be traded with others.
A pretty nice aspect with an MMO like that is that it would be easy to regularly add new content in the form of ne Pokemons and zones in order to keep players satisfied. What do you think of introducing new Pokemon races or mini-games like breeding Pokemons or anything like that?
This sounds spectacular, doesn't it? We’re convinced playing an MMO like that would be absolutely amazing and we're already picturing ourselves passing a lot of sleepless nights duelling with other players and trying to capture all available Pokemons. Now, what are your thoughts on this? And more importantly, how would YOU imagine your perfect Pokemon MMO title? Please share your ideas and thoughts in a comment!
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