Category: Not yet categorised

I am still alive

To my astonishment I am still alive, after working security for a week at one of the biggest music festivals in my country.  I haven’t looked at my inbox yet, or any of the comments on the last couple of posts; I just wanted to let everyone know that I am here, mostly healthy, and will get around to it just as soon as I finish sleeping for twelve hours straight.

In the meantime, go and read this article.  Friend of mine posted the link on Facebook.  It has absolutely nothing to do with Pokémon, at all, but it is exactly the point I was trying to make when I defended PETA in this post a little while back.  It is rather well-written and, whether you agree with it or not, the ideas it discusses are relevant to anyone who regularly engages with fiction (that is to say, absolutely everyone).

http://gyzym.tumblr.com/post/39004853136/just-shut-up

Also happy new year.  May your new year’s resolutions briefly illuminate the bleak misery of your lives with a ray of hope before their inevitable failure causes you to descend back into the neverending drudge of existence in this cold universe.

Look, I don’t do happy.  It makes me ill.

Down to brass tacks

Okay; good.  I’m liking what I see so far.  I’ve decided not to create another poll at this point after all – I have a quiet suspicion the result would be a foregone conclusion.  Instead I’m just going to say that we now have some pretty extensive discussion of how the ideas of Fire and Water can work together, and that this should hopefully be a solid place to start from.  Now it’s time to come up with some more specific design ideas – start actually describing Pokémon in detail and talking about their powers, behaviour and appearance.

Here’s the deal.  I’m going away for work after Christmas and probably won’t have internet access.  I’ll still be in the comments tomorrow and on Boxing Day, but this is probably the last think I’ll post until after I get back, which won’t be until the 2nd of January.  That’s, like, a week of discussion time.  Here’s what I’m hoping people can do:

1. Read the comments on the previous two entries, and everything that’s been said there.  There’s some good stuff.  Use it. (Incidentally, my last entry, the summation of all the concepts I’d seen so far, has been updated with an 8th concept and a little extra on the 6th).

2. If you want to describe a Pokémon based on any of those concepts, or on something completely different that hasn’t been discussed yet, write up a short paragraph about it.  I would prefer that you keep any artwork to yourself at this point.  I don’t want people judging these ideas by the quality (or absence) of art attached to them.

3. Comment on other people’s ideas.  Suggest ways to improve on them, if you can!

Just to make that absolutely clear: after Boxing Day (New Zealand time, so that’ll still be Christmas Day for a lot of my readers in America) I am gone.  You’re on your own.  You’re all a clever bunch, though – right?  I’m sure you can figure something out.  I suppose I’ll put together another poll of some sort when I get home.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all the rest of that stuff!

Have you played any RPGs other than Pokemon? If so, could game freak learn any lessons that are relevant to Pokemon by playing these RPGs? Also, would you recommend any of them to Pokemon fans?

Hrm.  Well, I’m a big fan of BioWare’s CRPGs; I’ve had a lot of fun with the Baldur’s Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, and Knights of the Old Republic.  I’ve also had some experience with Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series, and have been spending far too much time lately playing Skyrim.  I think these games can potentially provide a lot of nice examples of how to tell a story through the medium of a video game, and how to craft a markedly less linear plot – with the caveat that what Pokémon is trying to do is, in many ways, quite different, in terms of both the overall tone and outlook of the setting, and the inherent requirements of the gameplay mechanics.

Yay Discussion!

Okay, I’m seeing about seven different concepts for Water/Fire dual-types coalescing here (there may be more floating around in those comments but some of them blur together a little bit at the edges).  I was going to throw in my two cents in the comments thread, but then again, that would get messy, and also it’s nice to have something still happening on the front page, and give the ideas themselves a bit of visibility, no?  Here are my thoughts on each idea that I can distinguish, then (labelled with the names of people who suggested them or developed them in some way).

1. Oil fires (- Graygriffin and Andrewq).  Basically, a Pokémon that is either based on an oil slick or something, or somehow uses flaming oil as a power source.  It has powers over liquid and water, but also produces fire that won’t be put out by water.  Might be interesting for something like this to have an ability like Water Absorb or Storm Drain, to result in a Fire-type with immunity to Water?  I quite like this; it’s a fun way of mixing the elements that’s quite different to my initial take on the combination.

2. Fire extinguisher (- Andrewq).  A Pokémon dedicated to fighting fire.  I’m not sure about using an actual fire extinguisher as a base, because that sounds like it’s pushing into Steel-type territory, but it would be interesting to look at a Pokémon that developed powers over Fire in order to protect itself (and others) since Fire Pokémon are normally all about aggression and destruction.

3. Furnace or boiler (- Jack and Thatswhatbradsaid).  A Pokémon that is in some way modeled after a boiler or some such, but indirectly, the way Heatmor is based on a blast furnace – most of its body is actually organic, but it has little resemblances in shape, temperament, and so on.  Personally, I always thought it was odd that Heatmor isn’t Fire/Steel, but if this thing comes out with both Water and Fire powers, that’ll be much more innocuous.  This concept would focus on steam, and the technological influences could potentially allow us to reference the massive importance of steam power to… well… everything since the industrial revolution.

4. Polar Pokemon (- DBurningham).  A Pokémon from a tundra or glacial environment that gets water for its attacks by melting ice.  I wasn’t sure about this at first because my initial thought was that it should be an Ice-type, but actually, this could be interesting.  I don’t think I agree with D’s suggestion of Snow Warning as an ability since something like this wouldn’t necessarily have cold powers (which brings up another interesting point, actually – whatever we wind up creating might well be the first ever Water-type without Ice attacks!).

5. Paradox (LeonardoRegulus).  A Pokémon that just plain flouts reality by taking in water, turning it into fire, and blowing it out again.  I’m honestly not sure what I would do with this, though I think it might work best with a more abstract or overtly magical design.  It could well be combined with a number of the other concepts.  More thoughts on this from other readers would be much appreciated.

6. Deep sea creature (- CultHouse, MaltbysFalcon, Chewiana Jones, Jack, Wearat and Adam Dreifus).  I’m seeing a lot of support and some quite varied discussion for some manner of deep ocean Pokémon.  I’m not wild on the idea of bioluminescence, because then there’s a danger of getting into “Chinchou and Lanturn, only with fire instead of electricity,” although I suppose there’s a lot of room there for aesthetically very different ideas.  This could be something that uses fire to keep itself warm in the deep ocean and is forced to release it explosively on the surface to keep itself from overheating, or something that lives in or around deep ocean vents or undersea volcanoes; Adam suggested, for instance, giant tube worms, a Cloverfield-style behemoth, or a whirlpool Pokémon that influences ocean currents by controlling water temperature.  I always like deep ocean Pokémon, we could certainly do with more of them, and I’m seeing a lot of interesting ideas in this vein.  I don’t think there’s much I need to add to this.

7. Hydrogen/Oxygen fusion (- Wearat).  This is… outside the box, to say the least.  Two Fire/Ghost Pokémon, one representing oxygen, the other representing hydrogen, which, when traded with each other (a la Shelmet and Karrablast) both evolve into the same Water/Fire Pokémon (referencing the creation of water by the combustion of hydrogen).  I’m not sure about Fire/Ghost for the two juvenile forms, since Ghost has a lot of weird connotations that don’t necessarily fit here (I’d almost prefer Fire/Flying or even Fire/Psychic, actually), and I really don’t know what to think of the idea of a… what would I even call that?  A conjoint evolution?  If nothing else, it’s certainly unique, and unique is always fun…

8. Lava and water (- Crazedgamer111).  A Pokémon that’s literally half-and-half – split at the waist (or even down the middle?) between a fiery, lava-influenced appearance and a watery, aquatic appearance, maybe with a ‘belt’ of stone where the two meet and the water causes the lava to solidify.  This works with the whole ‘mingling of opposites’ idea, though in a very different way to what I had in mind, and potentially suggests some interesting flavour.

So, yes.  Carry on.  I’m not sure whether to decide this with another poll or what.  If I do, I’ll certainly be sure to make clear in the post that there is supposed to be a poll, and that if you can’t see it something’s wrong.  Any suggestions on how to run this are welcome, while you’re thinking.

Okay, now let’s actually do something

So, there was a… shall we say… minor hiccup… where my second poll was inexplicably invisible to 90% of readers for the first two days, but I did eventually get a reasonable number of votes, and the consensus now seems to be for Water/Fire as the type combination we’re going to work on.  So, what’s next?

What I want to do now is come up with something that will make this Pokémon conceptually unique.  I’m not talking about a full design, or a piece of art, or an animal to base it on, or anything like that – just an idea for something that will make our Pokémon different.  Something specific enough to be able to say “yes; this is a good reason to make a Water/Fire Pokémon,” but general enough that it doesn’t tie us down to a specific physical design or battle style – that’s the next part.  For example, the reason I liked the idea of a Water/Fire Pokémon was because combining the two elements potentially allows a designer to reverse their normal relationship – in Pokémon we always think about Water defeating Fire, but Fire can also strengthen Water in a way by creating steam.  Something that focuses on that reversal somehow might be fun.  Feel free to tinker with that idea or look at it from different angles – or just come up with a completely different interpretation of Water/Fire.

If you have an idea you want to talk about, bring it up in the comments to this post – or, if you don’t have a Disqus account, stick it in my ask box and I’ll collect them all together in a post at the end of each day.  Once we have a few ideas and some discussion on each of them, I’ll put together another poll.  Er… hopefully this one will work.

Am I detecting a lack of interest, or…?

So, that second poll I put up two days ago has so far failed to gather as many total votes as any of the four top options did in the first poll.  I’ve also had no comments on it, and no questions about anything.  Er… am I to take from this that no-one’s interested in trying this thing anymore?  I can just, like, give it up and go back to writing articles.  Most of the stuff I want to work on would be maddeningly incomplete if I tried to write it before playing White 2, which I still haven’t done, but I could probably make up a couple of short things to fill the gap.

I mean, if the world ends tomorrow then this is all moot anyway, but on the off chance it doesn’t, some feedback would be nice.  Anyone?

So, Ice and Ghost are looking popular…

That poll down there is going to stay open for another couple of days, so if you haven’t voted yet, please do so.  I’m going to do a second poll between the top three or four choices, since it’s looking pretty close.  At the moment the top two choices are Bug/Ice and Ghost/Steel, although Normal/Ghost and Ice/Poison are very close behind.  I’m still holding out hope for my personal favourite, Water/Fire, but since it’s looking pretty likely that we’re going to be making either an Ice-type or a Ghost-type, I’m going to jump the gun a little and talk a bit about those two types first.

Boring strategy stuff first.

Ghost is really useful defensively because it’s the only type that comes with two immunities (Normal and Fighting) and its two weaknesses are to types that are, themselves, relatively weak offensively.  Ghost Pokémon are, therefore, relatively difficult to damage.  Their attacks are lacklustre, partly because Ghost moves are only strong against two elements (Ghost and Psychic), and partly because there simply are no very high-powered Ghost attacks aside from Giratina’s Shadow Force.  I mean, yes, okay, Shadow Ball, but when you’re trying to stack up nonsense like Choice Specs and EVs and a nature boost and what have you, something that’s  15% weaker than Thunderbolt or Ice Beam is less than inspiring as your primary attack, put it that way.  If you’re a Ghost-type physical attacker like poor Golurk, you can forget it.

Ice is just the opposite.  Ice is a wonderful attacking type, getting bonus damage against four elements: Grass, Ground, Flying and Dragon (this last being particularly valuable since Dragons are relatively difficult to harm by other means).  Ice Beam is also among the select cluster of attacks that form the gold standard for power and accuracy in Pokémon.  Being an Ice-type grants you a 50% power bonus on attacks from this delightful element, which is wonderful news.  However, being an Ice-type also confers upon you four weaknesses, including three of the most powerful (and therefore widely used) offensive elements in the game – Fire, Rock and Fighting – and only one resistance, to Ice itself, which is useful, but isn’t going to salvage anything on its own.  I quietly suspect that the reason Ice is so bad, defensively, is because Game Freak never actually had to deal with a pure Ice-type before Ruby and Sapphire, by which time the type chart was pretty well set in stone, and so were never confronted with just how appalling its weaknesses were.

Right, now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at what makes these guys tick.

Ghost is a particularly fascinating type for me because of my shameless obsession with the vague and obliquely described culture of the Pokémon universe.  Although many of them aren’t actually ‘ghosts’ in the strictest sense of the word, Ghost Pokémon are intimately connected with the spirit world, death, and the souls of the dead, and have powers to match.  This means you can use them to look at how people in the Pokémon universe view death, the soul and, in some cases, morality. These are some of my favourite things!  They’re also integral parts of any culture, since death is something all civilisations have to deal with in one way or another.  This, in turn, means you have a vast selection of inspirations to draw upon from a zillion different mythologies.  They’re also, incidentally, much more closely linked with darkness, shadow and night than ‘Dark’ Pokémon are (Dark-types being associated mainly with concepts like malice and trickery) – another list of evocative ideas you can draw your inspiration from.  In the end, you can turn out designs as different and as uniquely fascinating as the playful but misunderstood Sableye, the enigmatic and sinister Dusclops, the broken and tormented Yamask, and the adorably evil Litwick.

Ice is interesting for entirely different reasons.  Ice, of course, is solid water, and is therefore connected with a number of the same ideas as water is.  The cold can be as powerful and dangerous as any ocean, but at the same time, licking at a block of ice will sustain you just as surely as catching rain in your mouth, and glistening crystals of ice can be just as beautiful as a tranquil stream.  Just as rivers and waves seem to have no immediate impact on the land, but wear it away over the decades, so glaciers seem totally immobile, but will carve enormous valleys through a landscape over hundreds or thousands of years.  Ice, obviously, also means cold, and winter – which, again, can destroy quickly, in a howling storm, or slowly, in a long cold night.  Two prominent Ice-type trainers in the games – Pryce and Candice – focus on this latter aspect, consciously building their training styles around endurance, dragging their opponents through all the harshness of a long, chilling winter while buckling down and ignoring it all themselves.  Ice Pokémon, like Pryce and Candice, are survivors.  They don’t just live through the cold; they thrive in it, and anyone who wants to fight them has to thrive in it with them.

Discuss.

I was recently thinking how unfair it was that water was one of the more popular types, but doesn’t get its own status condition. I mean fire gets burn, electric gets paralysis, ice gets freeze, poison gets, well, poison, psychic gets sleep, and grass seems to cover most of the others in one way or another. So how about the “wet” status? It slows the victim down, makes it less evasive, and increases the damage of electric type moves. Rain will also give it to every non-water type. Thoughts?

Do you really think that’s necessary?

I mean… there are seventeen types.  Five of them are associated with status conditions.  Honestly, I’d kinda dispute associating sleep with Psychic; there’s only one Psychic-type sleep-inducing move, while Grass and Normal have three each, not counting Relic Song).  Electric with paralysis is a little off too, since there are actually quite a few non-electrical sources of paralysis like Glare and Body Slam.  Why single out Water as needing to have an associated status condition?

Besides, Water is already a powerful element, and Rain is already a powerful field effect.  There’s no need to make them both stronger by linking them with an effect that dramatically increases a team’s ability to use devastating moves like Blizzard and Thunder.