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SwSh Sword & Shield: Expansion Pass

If we see the Minor League, I wonder if we will also see the version-opposite leaders.

I'd say it seems like a no-brainer since all the models and assets are already there, but at the same time, this seems like a ripe opportunity for a classic Game Freak idiosyncrasy! o_O
 
To be honest, now my mind's drifting to future DLC. With the anime not being tied to one region right now, and with the advent of Expansion Passes, I'm hoping the generation will last a long time, with more DLC and Pokemon. Like they can focus on building up S/S instead of worrying about a new generation. I'd like to see:
  • An Ultra Beast invasion DLC.
  • Returning characters, maybe some of them having their own sideplots.
  • DLC about running your own Gym. Maybe they'll match your levels.
  • Walking Pokemon.
  • PWT.
  • A long shot, but something to expand towns, cities and routes to make them bigger and more interesting.
  • Contests returning, or another meaningful sidequest.
  • A sequel to the main game, following the characters after everything that has happened.
  • Marlon DLC.
  • Jurassic Park DLC, where you can catch fossil Pokemon in the wild. Maybe we can get mix-and-matches of old Pokemon and call them Galarian variants.
  • Improved Rotom photography.
  • The minor League.
  • The return of Megas and/or Z-Moves, with their own side quests.
  • Time travel DLC, because why the hell not.
 
fun fact: The Railway Series (Thomas the Tank Engine) is set on the Island of Sodor, which when designed by the author, Rev. Wilbert Awdry, is situated in the Irish Sea between the Isle of Man and Barrow-in-Furness.
I had a ponder of what the Island of Sodor could look like in a Pokemon game. Could be an extension to the Isle of Armor since that's the Isle of Man.


wait a minute...

The Isle of Man... Could that mean we'll get a Manx Cat and Leprachaun Pokemon?
 
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fun fact: The Railway Series (Thomas the Tank Engine) is set on the Island of Sodor, which when designed by the author, Rev. Wilbert Awdry, is situated in the Irish Sea between the Isle of Man and Barrow-in-Furness.
I had a ponder of what the Island of Sodor could look like in a Pokemon game. Could be an extension to the Isle of Armor since that's the Isle of Man.


wait a minute...

The Isle of Man... Could that mean we'll get a Manx Cat and Leprachaun Pokemon?

Intresting however i dont think outside of mythical / legendary, or galarian forms new regular gen 8 pokemon probably arent extremely likely.
 
To be honest, now my mind's drifting to future DLC. With the anime not being tied to one region right now, and with the advent of Expansion Passes, I'm hoping the generation will last a long time, with more DLC and Pokemon. Like they can focus on building up S/S instead of worrying about a new generation. I'd like to see:
  • An Ultra Beast invasion DLC.
  • Returning characters, maybe some of them having their own sideplots.
  • DLC about running your own Gym. Maybe they'll match your levels.
  • Walking Pokemon.
  • PWT.
  • A long shot, but something to expand towns, cities and routes to make them bigger and more interesting.
  • Contests returning, or another meaningful sidequest.
  • A sequel to the main game, following the characters after everything that has happened.
  • Marlon DLC.
  • Jurassic Park DLC, where you can catch fossil Pokemon in the wild. Maybe we can get mix-and-matches of old Pokemon and call them Galarian variants.
  • Improved Rotom photography.
  • The minor League.
  • The return of Megas and/or Z-Moves, with their own side quests.
  • Time travel DLC, because why the hell not.

I've definitely had some ideas about DLC myself: I've come up with two interconnected ideas - Pen Academy and Parchment Skies

The former is basically Pokemon's version of Hogwarts; A sprawling school with a surrounding Wild Area for students to roam and catch Pokemon in. The latter consists of separate mini adventures accessed by "jumping" into books from the Academy Library. The legendaries for both will play into the theme of storytelling.
 
There will most likely be 2021 games and any DLC that year would just interfere with their promotion. Then, in 2022, SwSh will be far less relevant even if they're compatible with the new games.

I don't think that many players are eager to spend more than $30 on DLC for one game, either. At some point you just have to accept the games for what they are instead of daydreaming.
 
I don't think that many players are eager to spend more than $30 on DLC for one game, either. At some point you just have to accept the games for what they are instead of daydreaming.
It's actually getting more common on PC for games to have a full set of DLC that costs more than the base game, and some of these games are big sellers (like the recent Warhammer themed Total War games). I expect that concept to come to consoles eventually as well, if it hasn't already.
That's no guarantee SwSh will see a round two of DLC, of course.
 
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$30 dollars was about the cost of the Fighter Pass for Smash and the City That Never Sleeps DLC for Spider-Man PS4.

Granted, my dad bought the latter one so I didn't have to pay for it.

Wait, where was I going with this.
 
There will most likely be 2021 games and any DLC that year would just interfere with their promotion. Then, in 2022, SwSh will be far less relevant even if they're compatible with the new games.

I don't think that many players are eager to spend more than $30 on DLC for one game, either. At some point you just have to accept the games for what they are instead of daydreaming.
Not having the full dex by the time of the hypothetical remakes would be kind of unacceptable from this point onward.
 
I've definitely had some ideas about DLC myself: I've come up with two interconnected ideas - Pen Academy and Parchment Skies

The former is basically Pokemon's version of Hogwarts; A sprawling school with a surrounding Wild Area for students to roam and catch Pokemon in. The latter consists of separate mini adventures accessed by "jumping" into books from the Academy Library. The legendaries for both will play into the theme of storytelling.
I like both of these ideas, but specially the first one. I would love for our characters to go to school and take part in classes. Or even teach some. Just something to add more to the feeling of the game.
 
Looks like pokemon's Twitter confirmed

Isle of armor is inspired on the isle of man

And

Crown tundra is inspired on Scotland

View attachment 130282

So, to my understanding, there's an England area (Galar) and a Scotland area (Crown Tundra), but no Wales area. Could Wales possibly be saved for a future expansion pass?

The Isle of Man... Could that mean we'll get a Manx Cat and Leprachaun Pokemon?
I could see a Manx-like regional variant for one of the cat evolutionary lines.
 
I'm so excited for these expansion passes I actually feel a lot more inclined towards getting SwSh now. :)

Anyway, I think the bird trios we see aren't Galarian forms but rather corrupted versions of the trio, sort of like Shadow Lugia? Wouldn't be surprised if they all remain the same typing.

What I'm expecting is probably 3-4 new Galarian forms line. I really think they'd continue to produce Expansion Passes (at least two more I think) and I think we would definitely get all of the pokemon back by the end of this generation..

In the end my question is always the same: why the biggest franchise of all time had the worst marketing campaign ever? Why nobody thought it would have been a smart move to announce the existence of future dlc at e3 last year to (at least) try to calm the storm for dex cut?

They still should have said from the start that the Pokemon not in the base game would be added later as free dlc, the fact that they let this dexit crap go on for so long without quelling the rage of the complainers is mind-boggling to me.

Well, I guess they didn't want to admit that they did anything wrong with SwSh. But hey, at least they're doing something about it and in a fun and engaging way!

To be honest, now my mind's drifting to future DLC. With the anime not being tied to one region right now, and with the advent of Expansion Passes, I'm hoping the generation will last a long time, with more DLC and Pokemon. Like they can focus on building up S/S instead of worrying about a new generation. I'd like to see:
  • An Ultra Beast invasion DLC.
  • Returning characters, maybe some of them having their own sideplots.
  • DLC about running your own Gym. Maybe they'll match your levels.
  • Walking Pokemon.
  • PWT.
  • A long shot, but something to expand towns, cities and routes to make them bigger and more interesting.
  • Contests returning, or another meaningful sidequest.
  • A sequel to the main game, following the characters after everything that has happened.
  • Marlon DLC.
  • Jurassic Park DLC, where you can catch fossil Pokemon in the wild. Maybe we can get mix-and-matches of old Pokemon and call them Galarian variants.
  • Improved Rotom photography.
  • The minor League.
  • The return of Megas and/or Z-Moves, with their own side quests.
  • Time travel DLC, because why the hell not.

Oh I already have so many ideas! I really hope these means that they'll continue to release expansion passes to breathe new life into the games every once in a while.

I am personally praying for an expansion pass to Kalos (NOT A REMAKE OF XY IN THAT THERE WON'T BE THE TEAM FLARE STORY AND ALL) but just a chance to visit and maybe take on the gym challenge and hopefully further development on AZ's story with Eternal Floette.

Similarly, another one for Unova would be amazing too where we will maybe get the Pokemon World Tournament 2021.

Thank god there won't be third games honestly.
 
So, to my understanding, there's an England area (Galar) and a Scotland area (Crown Tundra), but no Wales area. Could Wales possibly be saved for a future expansion pass?

Wales is part of the Galar area with England (Route 9 being the Welsh inlet, Spikemouth being Llandudno and Route 10 being Snowdonia). Wales is it's own country, but is a Principality that is historically part of the Kingdom of England. The United Kingdom when formed in 1707 as the ''United Kingdom of Great Britain'' is a union of two Kingdoms, The Kingdom of England (including Wales and Ireland) and the Kingdom of Scotland. Ireland then joined a century later forming the ''United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland'', and a century later Ireland was separated forming Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, forming the ''United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland''.
 
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Wales is part of the Galar area with England (Route 9 being the Welsh inlet, Spikemouth being Llandudno and Route 10 being Snowdonia). Wales is it's own country, but is a Principality that is historically part of the Kingdom of England. The United Kingdom when formed in 1707 as the ''United Kingdom of Great Britain'' is a union of two Kingdoms, The Kingdom of England (including Wales and Ireland) and the Kingdom of Scotland. Ireland then joined a century later forming the ''United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland'', and a century later Ireland was separated forming Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, forming the ''United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland''.
Oh. I was misremebering where Wales was (I thought it was further out), and forgot that Galar isn't a perfect 1-1 map. Thanks for clarifying.
 
yes but in this case the point of the app is to link all experiences of pokemon together as features not just bank and sword and shield compatibility as it can be with go and lets go as well not to mention it a phone/tablet app that will allow you to even trade pokemon on it with people and as such with all those feature i doubt it going to be 5 USD a year or directly tied to switch online . i fully expect a 5 USD a month fee and/or a 20 to 40 USD fee with if it the 40 USD a 20 for 3 months plan .

i think the reason they did not annouce the price yet is because they didn't wanna geteven more backlash if it cost that much



they can only be traded without the NSO if you trade over local wireless you wanna trade without it NSO is the only option



READ ABOVE




NO and YES

and these games as 60 USD pokemon game are a farce to a certain extent when you consider there are companies selling full games on cart for the switch at 30 to 50 USD meaning The pokemon company (this includes nintendo by the way) knows full well they could sell them cheaper if they want they just choose not to it the same with adding all these subscription on to p the 30 USD DLC it will come out to about the same minimum as 2 60 USD games to get the full experience

lets put it this way read attached pic





they already confirmed in the direct it will cost money to use we just don't know how much


-----------------------------------------------
My point and view is this is very very shady business practices almost Activision and EA level shadiness with regards to microtransaction and DLC considering its going to cost almost 120 USD minimum to get the full experience in which case i rather get a black 2 or Ultra moon or an emerald over a dlc if the DLC is going to 30 the online 20, home at minimum 5 a year and the base game 60. as i'm almost positive there is some way they could do most of that for cheaper

its because of that i'm very concerned on how they are taking the direction of franchise moving forward which seems to me very EA and Activision like.

but then again i only usually buy the remakes, sequels or 3rd versions normally for the most part. so what do i know.
@attached photo
Yeah when we were on the 3ds the first pair and second pair would be a total of 80. Now this is what it would look like of they did a 3rd version of the dlc

Sword and shield + dlc = 90
Sword and shield + Ultra lets go sword and ultra lets go shield = 120
 
"If you remove an option, there is only one option!"

That being said: by the popular logic I see floating across the internet now, Pokémon have been locked behind a paywall from the beginning. Someone had to pay for a cable to trade between Game Boys. And you needed friends too, and most of us here need to buy them. And even by trading online with a rando, someone (i.e. the enigmatic rando in question) had to buy a console and a copy of the game to trade. Absolutely disgusting.

Already bought the Expansion Pass. Like everything that I saw in the Direct and looking forward to playing the expansions when they come out. I'm up to around 80 hours on my Shield save and I am only about 1/2-2/3 through with the Pokédex (although I've done all the other post-game stuff, including finishing BT in both singles and doubles, and I do a LOT of Max Raids with my friends). My favourite Pokémon game since my Crystal. Expansions are only going to make it better. Stoked.

true but except back then you weren't forced to trade or buy anything to get a relatively complete experience. NOW they are basically saying pay something or you don't get the extra 200 Pokemon that dependinng on who you ask same with the dlc should have been in the game in the first place


@attached photo
Yeah when we were on the 3ds the first pair and second pair would be a total of 80. Now this is what it would look like of they did a 3rd version of the dlc

Sword and shield + dlc = 90
Sword and shield + Ultra lets go sword and ultra lets go shield = 120

you ignored parts of what i posted and just went with the picture as either way it comes out to about the same cost of 120 if you factor in the cost of home and switch online

that is if you want the complete experience anyway

if you want the 200 pokemon via online trading and the base game only its 60 + 20 so 80

if you only want the dlc, the base game only and no only online trading 90


if you want everything so far its 110 (game, dlc, online trading)


You can say that as many times as you want, but since when does every country in the world use the dollar?

In Europe, the 3DS games would cost around 45 euros at release, making SuMo + USUM cost 90 euros for one first edition and one enhanced version. Or if you're the kind of person who buys both editions, a 180 euros. Similarly, SwSh was 60 euros a piece, much like Nintendo's other big names, and the Expansion Pack will be 30 euros, again 90 in total, the same as if you'd had bought a sequel instead. Funny how prices differ between countries and regions huh.

That said, the UK does see an increase of price by ten pounds, from 40 for SuMO and USUM a piece, to 60 for SwSh and 30 for the Expansion Pass. And for Japan the only reliable sales price I could find was ¥4,980, though probably SuMo wasn't priced much different. SwSh sells for ¥6578 and the total package of Sword plus Expansion pass comes to ¥9558, according to the Japanese website. So it seems like in Japan SwSh+Expansion Pass is slightly cheaper even than Sumo+USUM. So no, GF isn't 'stealing' money left and right.

Could they sell them cheaper? Absolutely. Technically, they could give them away for free, though that's not a particularly sound business advice.

But alas, Pokemon is the biggest global multi-media franchise, and included in this 60 dollar/euro/pound price is the brand. People want their pokeymanz and are willing to pay. Same for all the other first party games by Nintendo. So sure, you can call that corporate greed, I'm not gonna fight you on that. There are cheaper games, sure, but those usually aren't first party games, or smaller franchises. All those indie game Switch ports are definitely cheaper than a main line Pokemon game, but is that really a surprise?

As for NSO... I don't like it very much, so you won't find me defending it. But it's a Nintendo policy, as I mentioned before, so that's not something where GF can go 'but we want all our online features to be free!'. Cause if they do it for Pokemon, they'll have to do it for other games too. And then they'll have to cancel NSO. Which they clearly don't want, cause money.

And including NSO in the price of Pokemon isn't fair I think, as it gives online access for any game with such features. And if you only bought a Switch for the Pokemon games? Well, buying any device for a single game is usually risky, cause there's always the chance of disappointment and the feeling of money wasted. That's not Pokemon specific either.

As for the content itself, we don't know what we're getting exactly yet. We might not now till release. But what third version have usually offered is:
  • Move Tutors (redundant with TRs)
  • More old Pokemon available (present in DLC)
  • New areas to explore (present in DLC)
  • New characters (present in DLC)
  • New forms/mons/variants (more than BW2 or USUM did already in DLC)
  • A new story (two in the DLC even)
  • New moves (how many unclear, but the DLC does offer them)
  • A new battle facility (present in the DLC)
  • QoL features for a smoother gameplay (unconfirmed)
So far, I so no reason to claim the Expansion Pack is offering significantly less, unless I skipped a lot that could be found in the third versions. But when I think of Emerald, Platinum, BW2 or USUM, these are the features that come to mind, and all of these have been confirmed for the Expansion Pack, except QoL improvements, but those are usually not the most interesting so we might not hear about those till release. Whether it will be worth it I guess you'll have to judge for yourself.

I used dollar as a rough standard and yes understand currency values vary depending on location.
But depending on who you ask ask in Canada the game cost 80 Canadian dollars which makes it even worse for some

and you seemed to ignore some what the fact you have to now pay for online trading something that was built into the prior games thus when included makes the cost a wash for the most part

and it not necessarily completely true that "all" games games online require a NSO to use
as there are many games on the switch that use online that don't cost a penny towards NSO to play so basically it Pokemon company especially the nintendo part being unbelievably greedy .

a few examples i have found are
  • Arena of Valor
  • Brawlhalla
  • Dawn of the Breakers
  • Fortnite Battle Royale
  • GetAmped
  • Kitten Squad
  • Onigiri
  • Paladins
  • Smite
  • Warframe
There are of course other Nintendo Switch games that need a consistent internet connection – like Fallout Shelter – you can play without a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. But as far as i know, the games listed above are the only ones you can play online, with or against other people, without a subscription.

and sure most of them are 3rd parties or indies but to me that does not excuse the practice as most of those companies pay Nintendo to make the carts and even the packaging in some cases if i'm not mistaken meaning there making less on the games they release physically than Nintendo does on there as for Nintendo it marked of probably as a business expense


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another thing i'm sure there were and are some like myself who only bought Nintendo consoles especially the handhelds only for Pokemon for the most part. the only games were merely bonus content
 
and you seemed to ignore some what the fact you have to now pay for online trading something that was built into the prior games thus when included makes the cost a wash for the most part
Is that really GameFreak's fault though? I don't think they had any control over Nintendo Online. Granted, they still require players to trade, and therefore basically require people to purchase Nintendo Online because who has IRL friends in 2020, but I wouldn't attribute that to greed (Does GameFreak get a kickback from NSO anyways? Wouldn't Nintendo be the greedy one here?), moreso GameFreak's inability to adapt and evolve quickly. And general boneheadedness.
a few examples i have found are
  • Arena of Valor
  • Brawlhalla
  • Dawn of the Breakers
  • Fortnite Battle Royale
  • GetAmped
  • Kitten Squad
  • Onigiri
  • Paladins
  • Smite
  • Warframe
Isn't online play integral to the function of those games? I know Fortnite, Smite, and Warframe for sure need online connectivity (they are also free-to-play, which might factor into their exemption as well). Requiring players to purchase NSO would essentially force them to pay twice for those games and/or restrict their playerbase. On the other hand, Pokemon tends to be much more single-player orientated. I don't think its online functions are enough to justify exemption from NSO in the eyes of Nintendo unfortunately.
 
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