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Poke Transporter (Transfering Pokemon From Previous Gens)

Second, you seem to be misunderstanding what they were saying about DS and 3DS game incompatibility. They're saying that there's no built in program in the 3DS that allows DS -> 3DS communication. Not that DS -> app -> 3DS communication doesn't work. A transfer app is really simple, anyway, it only needs to do the following:

1. Extract the data from your 5th gen game
2. Find some place to store it.
3. Do whatever series of methods it has to do for the data to be translated
4. Import it to your 6th gen game

You don't need two separate apps to do all of that. The two apps are split on Step 2 simply because of how Game Freak designed the apps, the Transporter just moves them from 5th gen to the Bank (and probably Step 3, depending on how data in the Bank is stored vs. how data in 6th gen is stored), and then the Bank holds it until you withdraw it into your game.

(I'm not presuming to "know what [you're] thinking" I'm basing my response on the diction used in general by multiple people, which is one of strong distrust and belief that nintendo/gamefreak are acting with malevolent intention, I happen to have quoted you but I'm not directly addressing you, I would be happy for a response from anyone to be honest).

Whether the app can bridge the gap between the two or not (and as it is I see no proof one way or the other that it can), it doesn't address the issue of storage. Pokemon bank does that part. Here you are asserting that it can just be stored somewhere else in between carts. (perhaps on the app itself?) but I am not really convinced that it would work that way for sure.

I'm also of the belief that if they could make a single app that did what they wanted (transfer pokemon between cartridges) they would not have gone the extra mile and dev time to create the bank side of things. (and when I say what they wanted, I don't just mean transferring pokemon, but also protecting their interests in terms of how the data is handled and stored).

I feell like somewhat going a little deeper into why I (personally) am not bothered by this transferring/banking thing.

There are a couple of lines of thought going on here for me, 1 the compatibility issues, 2 the dev time, and 3 what happened with the dream world when they first released it. (The servers where unable to handle the load and they had to bottleneck use for the life time of the servers).

The first two go hand in hand. I don't personally do any coding (not since highschool anyway) but my boyfriend does for a living, He works remotely (from home) so I get to see first hand on a daily basis how nasty and downright frustrating it can be trying to wade through and troubleshoot bits of software and hardware that don't always want to get along. It can take a very long time to work even the smallest kink out, and sometimes you have to completely start over or take a different approach.

That is what I see this method of transference/storage that they came up with as. They looked at their past online infrastructure and saw that it wasn't enough to handle what all they wanted to do, especially with the player base growing with each release. They looked at compatibility issues and they saw something that could (and probably did) eat up a ton of dev time, they came up with a solution that sounds to me like them learning from their mistakes and trying to rectify them, and reduce the load in the future in that area. It's pretty obvious that they have sending things online figured out, but they will never be able to tell what the next piece of hardware or and storage format will be like, so they are removing that from the equation.

(And with that I'm not sure I have much else to add to the conversation one way or another, I originally came into this being spured on by my teacher instincts, but now I think I've just gotten too intrigued seeing the different lines of thought and why they are the way they are, so I'll keep watching with interest to see what comes out of both sides).
 
Why should Gamefreak have to bother creating a smaller, free app as well as a proper full sized one? That's just plain selfish, expecting Gamefreak to do something because you're not happy with what they've already done.

Because it's cheap of Game Freak to expect me to buy tons of storage space when I only need a small portion of space. I'm being forced to pay something I don't need. How is this so complicated to you guys?

And what you do not understand is that it doesn't matter how small the free app would be, it would still have to be available long term, therefore will require maintenance in order for it to keep up to date, and to ensure it continues running smoothly.

The Bank app isn't going to be long term either, not for 6th gen. Once we move on to 7th gen, we'll have to update Bank for 7th gen compatibility (and even transfer or download a new version if it's on the next handheld). And when that happens, they'll likely cut off support for 6th gen because it'd cost too much to keep the servers for both 6th gen and 7th gen up.

One thing to note is that no matter how small they make the server storage for a theoretical transfer app, it's still going to cost some money to maintain; it won't be free.

Free apps cost money too, they still make them free because the costs are small enough that they don't lose money. The server space from a transfer app would be small enough that they could afford this.

Whether the app can bridge the gap between the two or not (and as it is I see no proof one way or the other that it can), it doesn't address the issue of storage. Pokemon bank does that part. Here you are asserting that it can just be stored somewhere else in between carts. (perhaps on the app itself?) but I am not really convinced that it would work that way for sure.

Either on the SD carts or on small enough space in the cloud that it could be given away for free.

I'm also of the belief that if they could make a single app that did what they wanted (transfer pokemon between cartridges) they would not have gone the extra mile and dev time to create the bank side of things. (and when I say what they wanted, I don't just mean transferring pokemon, but also protecting their interests in terms of how the data is handled and stored).

Hack checks aren't specific to Bank either. The reason why Bank is separate is because they want long term storage space. Transfers would require short term storage space at most.
 
Because it's cheap of Game Freak to expect me to buy tons of storage space when I only need a small portion of space. I'm being forced to pay something I don't need. How is this so complicated to you guys?

No, it is cheap of you to expect Gamefreak to do something for free because you're not happy paying for it. As I said before, whether it is a small or large app, it will still cost money for them to create it as well as maintain it, therefore they would more than likely charge you for it if they did infact happen to do it that way. Nothing is complicated for us to understand, however it does seem complicated for you to understand that it isn't as easy as 'just making a smaller version for free.' They'd still require annual funds in order to maintain it.

And what you do not understand is that it doesn't matter how small the free app would be, it would still have to be available long term, therefore will require maintenance in order for it to keep up to date, and to ensure it continues running smoothly.

The Bank app isn't going to be long term either, not for 6th gen. Once we move on to 7th gen, we'll have to update Bank for 7th gen compatibility (and even transfer or download a new version if it's on the next handheld). And when that happens, they'll likely cut off support for 6th gen because it'd cost too much to keep the servers for both 6th gen and 7th gen up.

It is long term. Of course they will update it, they'll be having several updates for Pokemon bank. They're planning on using Pokemon bank in the future as well as the present, which is why they need funds for it in order to maintain it. It's not a short term app where they've created it for the sole purpose of Gen VI and then never touch it again come Gen VI. They have stated it is for the future aswell as the present, hence why it will be a long term app, hence why they need an annual fee to continue it.
 
No it's not, you can't get any Gen 5 Pokemon legally in an Apricorn Ball as the Apricorn balls were unobtainable in Gen 5. Only ones transfered from Gen 4 can be in Apricorn Balls
... Yeah, I did forget the Lure Ball was one of Kurt's designs.

The Bank app isn't going to be long term either, not for 6th gen. Once we move on to 7th gen, we'll have to update Bank for 7th gen compatibility (and even transfer or download a new version if it's on the next handheld). And when that happens, they'll likely cut off support for 6th gen because it'd cost too much to keep the servers for both 6th gen and 7th gen up.
Last I checked, the G4 GTS was still up and running.
 
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One thing to note is that no matter how small they make the server storage for a theoretical transfer app, it's still going to cost some money to maintain; it won't be free.

Free apps cost money too, they still make them free because the costs are small enough that they don't lose money. The server space from a transfer app would be small enough that they could afford this.
It depends on what you mean by "free apps", but...

My point is that no matter how small the space is, a smaller transfer service is still going to add continuous costs for GameFreak, both in terms of server upkeep, but also in maintenance and support. In addition to paying for the servers, GameFreak needs to hire staff to make sure it continues to work properly. Eventually, over time, they're not going to be able to justify the costs if it doesn't bring in any income, and they'll have to shut it down.

It might take a few years for that to happen, but if they have a separate transfer app that's not connected to the Pokémon Bank, and if they do that, it'll permanently cut off the previous generations to the current generations. I think this is a situation GameFreak wants to avoid, so they're connecting everything to a central Pokémon Bank that'll work through all generations(starting from Gen 6).
 
Servers are not magical machines that you can set up and then just leave alone forever.
 
Because it's cheap of Game Freak to expect me to buy tons of storage space when I only need a small portion of space. I'm being forced to pay something I don't need. How is this so complicated to you guys?

Realistically, the storage space is only a small fraction of the cost. Most of what you're paying for is the actual transportation of data and the cost required to maintain and build up the network required to handle the requests. It's the same way with most other cloud storage - the big cost is actually uploading and downloading data, not storing it. That's why there isn't a full-time limited-storage plan in place; it doesn't matter how much data you store, but how often you access it. Even if you could only store a single box, for instance, there would still be substantial cost if you utilize it fairly regularly. Incidentally, that's why they're giving you a month of free service to handle all the transfers - it costs less for them to take a loss for that a month, but to ensure that everyone who doesn't want to buy the service will still have the opportunity to make the transfer, than it does to offer some form of limited service beyond that time frame. That's also why a lot of file sharing sites - like rapidshare - tend to place limits on the frequency of downloading and the speed of how fast you can download when using their free service; actually storing the data on their servers is much less expensive than transporting it.

Either on the SD carts or on small enough space in the cloud that it could be given away for free.

Storing data on the SD cards and writing them to the game cartridge itself probably won't happen because it's insecure. With the current model, there is no point where data could be modified before it's uploaded to your game cart. Storing data locally on the SD card is a security risk on a lot of different levels, especially if that data is going to be written to the cartridge, which it presumably is. As a professional company, it is Gamefreak's job to make certain that when they handle data, it isn't unnecessarily placed in risk and writing it to the SD Cards definitely is a risk.
 
... Yeah, I did forget the Lure Ball was one of Kurt's designs.

The Bank app isn't going to be long term either, not for 6th gen. Once we move on to 7th gen, we'll have to update Bank for 7th gen compatibility (and even transfer or download a new version if it's on the next handheld). And when that happens, they'll likely cut off support for 6th gen because it'd cost too much to keep the servers for both 6th gen and 7th gen up.
Last I checked, the G4 GTS was still up and running.

And how many people are going to use a GTS system from Gen 4 when we are now in gen 6? The Pokemon bank app is a long term solution that they plan to continuously update and make better in order to give us fans an even better experience.

I doubt Gamefreak is going to be focusing a lot of time into an old GTS system that will barely be used at all.
 
My point was that it's still running. And note that despite the planned closure of the G5 PGL, the G5 GTS will continue to remain available in-game.
 
My point was that it's still running. And note that despite the planned closure of the G5 PGL, the G5 GTS will continue to remain available in-game.

And my point is that that doesn't even matter. It's hardly an argument considering it is there just because it is there, something that Pokemon bank is not.

It is an app separate, yet compatible with the games, therefore it is going to generate its own source of funds in order to help maintain the app for the future. I don't understand why people think that is so unfair.

If anyone here created an app, and needed a continuous stream of funds in order to maintain it and keep it up to date, they would all charge a fee in order to generate those funds, otherwise they would lose money. Why that apparently makes Gamefreak greedy, I do not understand.
 
Realistically, the storage space is only a small fraction of the cost. Most of what you're paying for is the actual transportation of data and the cost required to maintain and build up the network required to handle the requests. It's the same way with most other cloud storage - the big cost is actually uploading and downloading data, not storing it. That's why there isn't a full-time limited-storage plan in place; it doesn't matter how much data you store, but how often you access it. Even if you could only store a single box, for instance, there would still be substantial cost if you utilize it fairly regularly. Incidentally, that's why they're giving you a month of free service to handle all the transfers - it costs less for them to take a loss for that a month, but to ensure that everyone who doesn't want to buy the service will still have the opportunity to make the transfer, than it does to offer some form of limited service beyond that time frame. That's also why a lot of file sharing sites - like rapidshare - tend to place limits on the frequency of downloading and the speed of how fast you can download when using their free service; actually storing the data on their servers is much less expensive than transporting it.

Okay, this is more understandable, so I'm going to stop here. Still, though, from a consumer perspective this looks really bad, because they're taking a fan favorite, free (or at least inherently free) feature and locking it behind a paywall, and regardless of their intentions or the necessity of the costs, it makes them look like they're gouging the price of the game like other developers have been doing with Day 1 DLC and the like. I'll bite the bullet just this once, but if this leads to further price increases for previously in game features, I'm done with the series. I will not continue to support developers that deliver increasingly less bang for my buck, which is what Game Freak has been doing in the last two games.
 
Realistically, the storage space is only a small fraction of the cost. Most of what you're paying for is the actual transportation of data and the cost required to maintain and build up the network required to handle the requests. It's the same way with most other cloud storage - the big cost is actually uploading and downloading data, not storing it. That's why there isn't a full-time limited-storage plan in place; it doesn't matter how much data you store, but how often you access it. Even if you could only store a single box, for instance, there would still be substantial cost if you utilize it fairly regularly. Incidentally, that's why they're giving you a month of free service to handle all the transfers - it costs less for them to take a loss for that a month, but to ensure that everyone who doesn't want to buy the service will still have the opportunity to make the transfer, than it does to offer some form of limited service beyond that time frame. That's also why a lot of file sharing sites - like rapidshare - tend to place limits on the frequency of downloading and the speed of how fast you can download when using their free service; actually storing the data on their servers is much less expensive than transporting it.

Okay, this is more understandable, so I'm going to stop here. Still, though, from a consumer perspective this looks really bad, because they're taking a fan favorite, free (or at least inherently free) feature and locking it behind a paywall, and regardless of their intentions or the necessity of the costs, it makes them look like they're gouging the price of the game like other developers have been doing with Day 1 DLC and the like. I'll bite the bullet just this once, but if this leads to further price increases for previously in game features, I'm done with the series. I will not continue to support developers that deliver increasingly less bang for my buck, which is what Game Freak has been doing in the last two games.

I don't really think they're locking it behind a paywall. I can understand that some people feel that way, but this is substantially different from Day 1 DLC. DLC is the kind of thing that has a fairly fixed cost - you develop it and then people only ever really need to download it once, maybe twice, if something happens to their system. Conceptually, Day 1 DLC is exactly what people make it out to be - content that should have been included in the game itself but wasn't, so that additional money could be made. People have different opinions about Gamefreak and the Pokemon Franchise, but everything we've heard suggests to me that Gamefreak chose this solution because it is legitimately the best one available and probably the only one that fits their needs. I sort of suspect that Gamefreak actually set out with the intention to include this functionality in the game proper, but doing so was impossible, which is why the functionality is removed from the game and handed off to an application instead. It's a case of doing what's needed to ensure the satisfaction of fans, even if the solution is not ideal in every conceivable way.
 
I don't really think they're locking it behind a paywall. I can understand that some people feel that way, but this is substantially different from Day 1 DLC. DLC is the kind of thing that has a fairly fixed cost - you develop it and then people only ever really need to download it once, maybe twice, if something happens to their system. Conceptually, Day 1 DLC is exactly what people make it out to be - content that should have been included in the game itself but wasn't, so that additional money could be made. People have different opinions about Gamefreak and the Pokemon Franchise, but everything we've heard suggests to me that Gamefreak chose this solution because it is legitimately the best one available and probably the only one that fits their needs. I sort of suspect that Gamefreak actually set out with the intention to include this functionality in the game proper, but doing so was impossible, which is why the functionality is removed from the game and handed off to an application instead. It's a case of doing what's needed to ensure the satisfaction of fans, even if the solution is not ideal in every conceivable way.

I'm not saying that it puts Game Freak in the same boat as companies like EA (although Game Freak has had their share of baffling design decisions in the past that would lead me to believe they're capable of going that far), but the point is that both situations are indistinguishable to the consumer. They're going to look at this system, see that the game is losing value, and feel like they're being cheated out of their money.
 
I don't really think they're locking it behind a paywall. I can understand that some people feel that way, but this is substantially different from Day 1 DLC. DLC is the kind of thing that has a fairly fixed cost - you develop it and then people only ever really need to download it once, maybe twice, if something happens to their system. Conceptually, Day 1 DLC is exactly what people make it out to be - content that should have been included in the game itself but wasn't, so that additional money could be made. People have different opinions about Gamefreak and the Pokemon Franchise, but everything we've heard suggests to me that Gamefreak chose this solution because it is legitimately the best one available and probably the only one that fits their needs. I sort of suspect that Gamefreak actually set out with the intention to include this functionality in the game proper, but doing so was impossible, which is why the functionality is removed from the game and handed off to an application instead. It's a case of doing what's needed to ensure the satisfaction of fans, even if the solution is not ideal in every conceivable way.

I'm not saying that it puts Game Freak in the same boat as companies like EA (although Game Freak has had their share of baffling design decisions in the past that would lead me to believe they're capable of going that far), but the point is that both situations are indistinguishable to the consumer. They're going to look at this system, see that the game is losing value, and feel like they're being cheated out of their money.

Possibly. I've seen some people unhappy with it, but I haven't actually seen the quite outrage that I've seen over DLC and, say, the XBOX One stuff back in May. We'll see how it develops, but I hope people come to understand why this is a necessity.
 
I don't really think they're locking it behind a paywall. I can understand that some people feel that way, but this is substantially different from Day 1 DLC. DLC is the kind of thing that has a fairly fixed cost - you develop it and then people only ever really need to download it once, maybe twice, if something happens to their system. Conceptually, Day 1 DLC is exactly what people make it out to be - content that should have been included in the game itself but wasn't, so that additional money could be made. People have different opinions about Gamefreak and the Pokemon Franchise, but everything we've heard suggests to me that Gamefreak chose this solution because it is legitimately the best one available and probably the only one that fits their needs. I sort of suspect that Gamefreak actually set out with the intention to include this functionality in the game proper, but doing so was impossible, which is why the functionality is removed from the game and handed off to an application instead. It's a case of doing what's needed to ensure the satisfaction of fans, even if the solution is not ideal in every conceivable way.

I'm not saying that it puts Game Freak in the same boat as companies like EA (although Game Freak has had their share of baffling design decisions in the past that would lead me to believe they're capable of going that far), but the point is that both situations are indistinguishable to the consumer. They're going to look at this system, see that the game is losing value, and feel like they're being cheated out of their money.

Possibly. I've seen some people unhappy with it, but I haven't actually seen the quite outrage that I've seen over DLC and, say, the XBOX One stuff back in May. We'll see how it develops, but I hope people come to understand why this is a necessity.

I doubt it, if they don't understand now chances are they never will. We've all tried explaining that it needed to be done, however their thoughts are their thoughts. It is a shame GameFreak has to be targeted in a negative manner just because they cannot attempt to understand why Gamefreak has done what they've done.
 
Servers are not magical machines that you can set up and then just leave alone forever.


Best thing on this thread yet.

5 Dollars a year, your complaining about.

However, DLC for games such as call of duty people don't care about

/nintendologic..............?
Whatever this thing is gonna be that's going to recognize hacked Pokémon, it wasn't present in earlier generations, as hacked Pokémon could earlier be transported without any problems, as far as I know. Maybe it's because it's going to work with an online storage now or something? But then again, hacked Pokémon can also be obtained through GTS.

Anyway, must suck for people who want to transport their legitimate event V-Create Rayquaza or Roar of Time Darkrai, or Game Freak is gonna find a way to still transport these legit Pokémon with normally unteachable moves. And must also suck for people who want to transport and unknowlingly obtained a perfectly normal looking hacked Pokémon through GTS.

Also note how the site says: "You may find yourself unable to...." instead of "You will find yourself unable to...."

The events have a cherish ball, thats how nintendo tells the difference.
So hacked Pokémon that have been hacked to be in Cherish Balls will also get past the check? I don't think that's how it's going to work. I do think legitimate Pokémon with normally illegal moves will be able to transport in some way, but how... we'll see. I'm curious how GameFreak will handle the complications one can easily come up with now.
Simply look at all pokemon from events, see the cherish ball, so say crustle is in a cherish ball, its not allowed.
Maybe. I think there will go a lot of programming in an anti-hack system. To work perfectly, it will have to scan about everything there is about a Pokémon. Location caught, stats, moves, etc. I'm strongly questioning if this will work perfectly and all legit Pokémon will be able to pass. Maybe the reason GameFreak has never implemented a hack-scan is because it was too hard to manage before? Maybe they have found a way for it to work good now? We'll see...

/start conspiracy of Nintendo enslavement
 
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Whatever this thing is gonna be that's going to recognize hacked Pokémon, it wasn't present in earlier generations, as hacked Pokémon could earlier be transported without any problems, as far as I know. Maybe it's because it's going to work with an online storage now or something? But then again, hacked Pokémon can also be obtained through GTS.

Anyway, must suck for people who want to transport their legitimate event V-Create Rayquaza or Roar of Time Darkrai, or Game Freak is gonna find a way to still transport these legit Pokémon with normally unteachable moves. And must also suck for people who want to transport and unknowlingly obtained a perfectly normal looking hacked Pokémon through GTS.

Also note how the site says: "You may find yourself unable to...." instead of "You will find yourself unable to...."

The events have a cherish ball, thats how nintendo tells the difference.
So hacked Pokémon that have been hacked to be in Cherish Balls will also get past the check? I don't think that's how it's going to work. I do think legitimate Pokémon with normally illegal moves will be able to transport in some way, but how... we'll see. I'm curious how GameFreak will handle the complications one can easily come up with now.
Simply look at all pokemon from events, see the cherish ball, so say crustle is in a cherish ball, its not allowed.
Maybe. I think there will go a lot of programming in an anti-hack system. To work perfectly, it will have to scan about everything there is about a Pokémon. Location caught, stats, moves, etc. I'm strongly questioning if this will work perfectly and all legit Pokémon will be able to pass. Maybe the reason GameFreak has never implemented a hack-scan is because it was too hard to manage before? Maybe they have found a way for it to work good now? We'll see...

/start conspiracy of Nintendo enslavement
Conspiracy!?? I just strongly have my doubts about some things...
 
Whatever this thing is gonna be that's going to recognize hacked Pokémon, it wasn't present in earlier generations, as hacked Pokémon could earlier be transported without any problems, as far as I know. Maybe it's because it's going to work with an online storage now or something? But then again, hacked Pokémon can also be obtained through GTS.

Anyway, must suck for people who want to transport their legitimate event V-Create Rayquaza or Roar of Time Darkrai, or Game Freak is gonna find a way to still transport these legit Pokémon with normally unteachable moves. And must also suck for people who want to transport and unknowlingly obtained a perfectly normal looking hacked Pokémon through GTS.

Also note how the site says: "You may find yourself unable to...." instead of "You will find yourself unable to...."

The events have a cherish ball, thats how nintendo tells the difference.
So hacked Pokémon that have been hacked to be in Cherish Balls will also get past the check? I don't think that's how it's going to work. I do think legitimate Pokémon with normally illegal moves will be able to transport in some way, but how... we'll see. I'm curious how GameFreak will handle the complications one can easily come up with now.
Simply look at all pokemon from events, see the cherish ball, so say crustle is in a cherish ball, its not allowed.
Maybe. I think there will go a lot of programming in an anti-hack system. To work perfectly, it will have to scan about everything there is about a Pokémon. Location caught, stats, moves, etc. I'm strongly questioning if this will work perfectly and all legit Pokémon will be able to pass. Maybe the reason GameFreak has never implemented a hack-scan is because it was too hard to manage before? Maybe they have found a way for it to work good now? We'll see...

/start conspiracy of Nintendo enslavement
Conspiracy? I just strongly have my doubts about some things...


oh that was supposed to be a self-joke lol
 
5 Dollars a year, your complaining about.

Not me. I'm complaining about Transporter being touted as "free" when you have to buy something else to actually use it. The low price tag just means it's an affordable cruddy setup.
 
5 Dollars a year, your complaining about.

Not me. I'm complaining about Transporter being touted as "free" when you have to buy something else to actually use it. The low price tag just means it's an affordable cruddy setup.

And it is most likelly still free you download the app, and when its needed to pay for it, the Poketransporter thing is probably enable and if you don't pay for it the Pokebank option is disabled, atleast thats how I see it working but I have no problem paying the 5 euros or wtv it will cost here in Europe, I've played MMOs for years and paid 13 euros for subs for the same reasons, servers maintenance, this one is only anual which is great.
 
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