Official Pre-Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield Speculation & Leaks thread

[Oriden]

I mean, we always wanted a tiger, koala, and wolf pokemon. And all 3 wishes were granted in one game. Also keep in mind water starters have to be based off aquatic creatures that can survive on land as well.

It's more just to the fact that it's a recent popular item so any leak that promises a platypus without any other details feels like another hop on the fan pandering bandwagon. This leak also just overall plays it safe or throws out ideas with clearly little thought behind them so platypus aside- we may very well get one, but I very much doubt this leak.

 

[RileyXY1]

It's more just to the fact that it's a recent popular item so any leak that promises a platypus without any other details feels like another hop on the fan pandering bandwagon. This leak also just overall plays it safe or throws out ideas with clearly little thought behind them so platypus aside- we may very well get one, but I very much doubt this leak.

Yeah. This leak plays it way too safe for it to be credible.

 

[prog rocker]

At this point we should make a list with all the things that destroy leaks' credibility. So far I got:

1- Mention of a pink whale. Bonus points if it's Mythical.
2- Mention of a platypus Water starter.
3- Light-Type.
4- Mewthree.
5- Completely removing Pokémon.
6- A hard reboot.
7- Anything Piuk said.
8- Tradition vs innovation.
9- Plus/Minus.
10- Drawings with a "CONFIDENTIAL" stamp.
11- Sound-Type.
12- Removing Types.
13- Making Mew an UB.

 

[SinnohEevee]

At this point, I think a platypus starter seems like fan pandering because of the fake platypus starter that we were teased with earlier- it's kind of a hot topic on the fan wish lists now, so the fake leaks are on the platypus bandwagon because they know everyone wants it. The more people want something, the more they want to believe a leak even if most of it is obvious safe bets and poorly thought out ideas.

Anyone got another aquatic creature they would rather see a starter of? If we all pick one and make it popular, all the leaks will promise them for Gen 8 and they work at Nintendo so you know they're legit. ;P

My aunt works at Game Freak and told me we will get a Water/Psychic dolphin.

 

[Knightwolf09]

Yeah. This leak plays it way too safe for it to be credible.

I'm somewhat confused. Normally when we get leaks that break the norm of pokemon people think it's fake because it breaks it, but now there's a thing as too safe?

 

[BigBadButterfree]

I'm somewhat confused. Normally when we get leaks that break the norm of pokemon people think it's fake because it breaks it, but now there's a thing as too safe?

Next people will say "this leak has just the right amount of safe guesses and outlandish theories, too good to be true, must be fake."

 

[prog rocker]

My aunt works at Game Freak and told me we will get a Water/Psychic dolphin.

I knew I was missing something from my list! Specially since it's something I have heard since... 2007? Wow.
14- Dolphin Pokémon.

EDIT: Also:

15- If leak includes info on other games: Mentions of Mother 3 getting translated/bundled with the other games in the series/remade. No, I have not waited for ten years and cried over EarthBound 64's cancellation.

 

[RileyXY1]

I'm somewhat confused. Normally when we get leaks that break the norm of pokemon people think it's fake because it breaks it, but now there's a thing as too safe?

We're saying that this recent leak is "too safe" because most of what it says is copy/pasted from other leaks.

 

[Oriden]

I'm somewhat confused. Normally when we get leaks that break the norm of pokemon people think it's fake because it breaks it, but now there's a thing as too safe?

I think it's a sliding scale- there's too outlandish and then there's "you guessed nothing but the obvious." It's gotta be somewhere in the middle.

Personally, I think that if it's a bunch of super duper obvious stuff and the leaker is caking on a shitton of them, then it just looks like padding to try to make their leak look believable. So safe guesses aren't bad on their own, but when it comes to weighing out a leak, they're bad in excess because they're trying to cover up the not-safe parts of the leak, and it's especially bad if the not-safe things they're balancing out fall flat. So like... we can toss out all the safe guesses because they're useless padding. It's the not-safe guesses that are worth looking at, and in this case- there's a clear lack of thought and inspiration behind what's there.

 

[RileyXY1]

I knew I was missing something from my list! Specially since it's something I have heard since... 2007? Wow.
14- Dolphin Pokémon.

EDIT: Also:

15- If leak includes info on other games: Mentions of Mother 3 getting translated/bundled with the other games in the series/remade. No, I have not waited for ten years and cried over EarthBound 64's cancellation.

Here's some more:

16: No more dual versions
17: Changes to the battle system
18: Removing Mega Evolution or Z-Moves
19: It specifically says when the game is announced

 

[TechSkylander1518]

I'm somewhat confused. Normally when we get leaks that break the norm of pokemon people think it's fake because it breaks it, but now there's a thing as too safe?

Well, yeah. Pokemon is a franchise with a lot of established constants that fans can anticipate all the time. Plus, most games tend to keep old features and build on them. Saying things like "they'll bring back a feature that they used in the past two generations" and "they'll use a feature included in the newest game" is not exactly shocking.

Look at this fake post I made:

Spoiler

I don't have any insider info, but I can still make these claims that are pretty likely to be true. That's why people doubt safe guesses like these. (And probably also because we've never had a credible leak with safe guesses)

And as for stuff that's breaking the norm, it typically varies from person to person-I know I'm personally not at all willing to throw out the idea of platypus or dolphin Pokemon-but I think there's extremes that are perfectly reasonable things to react with "that's not going to happen". This usually happens because being extreme isn't the only reason to be doubtful-people also think the consequences won't be worth it. For example, there were a few leaks recently that discussed permanent retcons of characters and/or regions. The "that'll never happen" response came a lot, but it wasn't just "they'll never change"-the idea was that there's no reason to muddle canon and confuse fans with retcons when creating new things would still provide new content without any confusion.

 

[Knightwolf09]

I think it's a sliding scale- there's too outlandish and then there's "you guessed nothing but the obvious." It's gotta be somewhere in the middle.

Personally, I think that if it's a bunch of super duper obvious stuff and the leaker is caking on a shitton of them, then it just looks like padding to try to make their leak look believable. So safe guesses aren't bad on their own, but when it comes to weighing out a leak, they're bad in excess because they're trying to cover up the not-safe parts of the leak, and it's especially bad if the not-safe things they're balancing out fall flat. So like... we can toss out all the safe guesses because they're useless padding. It's the not-safe guesses that are worth looking at, and in this case- there's a clear lack of thought and inspiration behind what's there.

So what exactly makes a leak more believable?

 

[TechSkylander1518]

So what exactly makes a leak more believable?

Here's some things I'd personally consider more believable:

• A leak only has a story behind how they got the info if it's coming from a fan and not an employee. This is based on the past leaks-XY and BW were fans who described what happened, and SuMo didn't have any story to it. (And also because why would an employee give info that would help identify them?) A story isn't necessary to be believable, though, even for fans, as the LGPE leaks showed. (much as I don't like having to take someone just at their word)
• Nothing included that's just the standard setup for a Pokemon game, or "this common feature returns". Nobody is going to risk legal troubles for easily-guessed info.
• Nothing that says "don't believe all these others leaks, listen to me instead!" The truth tends to speak for itself, and none of the previous leaks did this,
• No photos of a screen. Our only concept art leak was the file directly uploaded online, which makes sense-if you have access to the file, why go to the extra trouble of taking a photo and uploading that? (Sure, if a fan somehow got into Game Freak and only had time to take a picture, it'd make sense-but how the heck would anyone just get in and snap a photo of a computer conveniently looking at concept art without getting in trouble?)
• No timeframes for announcement/trailer/release. Never been a real leak with one, and it doesn't really make sense that people would discover them. Scheduling like that is going to be an executive decision based on progress, and I doubt they'll be spilling anything.
• This is one that might make me eat my words later, but honestly, I think any text-only anon post on 4Chan is pretty much guaranteed to be fake. As far as I've seen, none of them have ever turned out to be true. Our only purely text-based leaks were the LGPE ones, which weren't on 4Chan. (I know about the USUM Wishlist "leak", and I still say it's fake. Half of it was false, the other half was vague, easy-to-predict stuff) We've had credible leaks come from 4Chan before, like Lurantis, but they also included images there.

Naturally, this isn't an end-all decider. We've had fake leaks that didn't do this, and it's totally possible that an employee could post photos of a screen anonymously on 4Chan, tell their story, include basic info and a release date, and say "this is the only real leak, don't listen to anything else!" But I think this is a pretty good base for skepticism.

 

[SodiumChloride]

Have the chinese leakers been inactive since August?

 

[SodiumChloride]

1- Mention of a pink whale. Bonus points if it's Mythical.
2- Mention of a platypus Water starter.
3- Light-Type.
4- Mewthree
7- Anything Piuk said.
8- Tradition vs innovation.
9- Plus/Minus.
10- Drawings with a "CONFIDENTIAL" stamp.
11- Sound-Type.
14- Dolphin pokemon
17: Changes to the battle system
19: It specifically says when the game is announced

Any of these could actually happen though

 

[PurplePopplio]

My aunt works at Game Freak and told me we will get a Water/Psychic dolphin.

Let me guess. It evolves into a pink whale Mythical?

 

[prog rocker]

Any of these could actually happen though

I'm not saying they can't happen, I'm saying that these are the things that leakers frequently mention, mostly because other leakers include them (e.g. Mewthree, who was been mentioned since 1998-2000 AFAIK, and Sound-Type that has been mentioned since 2010 at least).

I know there's a chance some of them happen in the future like what happened with the Fairy-Type and the "not actually Pokémon" concept, but it's unlikely they happen.

 

[BackSet]

At this point, I think a platypus starter seems like fan pandering because of the fake platypus starter that we were teased with earlier- it's kind of a hot topic on the fan wish lists now, so the fake leaks are on the platypus bandwagon because they know everyone wants it. The more people want something, the more they want to believe a leak even if most of it is obvious safe bets and poorly thought out ideas.

Anyone got another aquatic creature they would rather see a starter of? If we all pick one and make it popular, all the leaks will promise them for Gen 8 and they work at Nintendo so you know they're legit. ;P

I don't have an aquatic creature but a pangolin pokemon would be cool.

 

[Tuoko]

This is one that might make me eat my words later, but honestly, I think any text-only anon post on 4Chan is pretty much guaranteed to be fake. As far as I've seen, none of them have ever turned out to be true. Our only purely text-based leaks were the LGPE ones, which weren't on 4Chan. (I know about the USUM Wishlist "leak", and I still say it's fake. Half of it was false, the other half was vague, easy-to-predict stuff) We've had credible leaks come from 4Chan before, like Lurantis, but they also included images there

You said yourself that there were the LGPE leaks and the USUM wishlist one, which didn't exactly have stuff that were "easy to predict at the time". I honestly doubt that people easily predicted actual new Pokemon/UBs and Rainbow Rocket back when USUM were first announced. Now that it's happened, we can now say new Pokemon in mid-gen games is easily predictable for a leak. While there was fake stuff, that doesn't make the whole thing fake. The two (or maybe just the latest one) LGPE leaks have fake stuff, and part of the leak turned out to be legit.

There was also a SM leak on 4chan back then that also revealed the fact that we're getting evolving Legendaries (Cosmog) and Lusamine's goal about the UBs + the fact they're Pokemon.

 

[Esserise]

I know about the USUM Wishlist "leak", and I still say it's fake. Half of it was false, the other half was vague, easy-to-predict stuff

Are you sure? What's labelled as the "USUM Wishlist" leak in the old thread got basically everything right, except for new Alola Forms (kek), the removal of the Poké Finder, and whatever the bit about Hau getting better clothes was. And sure, some of the stuff is "easy to guess" in a vacuum, but concentrated in one shot like that? I'm willing to say they knew what was up.

While I'm here, the original Chinese leak was "text only," though obviously that was a bit of a special case because Smogon verified the source or something before posting didn't they? Same for PokéBeach's XY leak.

But there was also that 4chan leak which first gave away the existence of Alola Forms, and that was text-only. It's listed in this thread as "4chan leak (July 15)." While it did get a lot wrong (and I should emphasize that I'm talking only about the first set of claims in the spoiler box, as I think it's clear in hindsight that the subsequent lists like the one with the Fighting-type Alakazam claim were just piggybackers; there was never any reason to assume they were all coming from the same guy), the fact that it got two non-obvious, unprecedented things (the time difference between versions and the existence of old forms for new Pokémon) is, to me, reasonably impressive. But sure, I do think this one was anomalous - the phrase "exceptions to the rule" does leap to mind.