Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[MisheardWhisper]

Ugh, people on my Facebook feed will NOT stop raving about how amazing that movie is. I need better friends.

Admittedly, I haven't seen it myself yet, so I'm doing my best to reserve judgement. But at the same time . . . it was pretty obvious right from the first trailer what sort of movie they were trying to make, and it seems they nailed that target demographic. Most of the (relatively reliable) reviews I've seen online tend towards the negative, though. Did you hear that a bunch of fans tried petitioning to get Rotten Tomatoes shut down because it only shows a 35% positive rating?

 

[Instrutilus]

Ah the wonders of the modern era.

If you don't like it, b***h until it goes away. Not going away? Keep b***hing, it should eventually.

Edit:
Also, I dida bit of looking about Sgt. Bash and found this about his lack of presence in Series 8, from the Robot Wars Facebook page:

"Sgt Bash isn't joining us for this series, as we only needed four for this series. However next time..."

So expect him in Series 9 if there is one.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Loving the word choice there, Beth.

Agreed. I accidentally clicked on the latest post button instead of first unread and wasn't aware of the discussion going on, and I was like, wat

 

[Instrutilus]

One has to ponder... with the Alola Forms reveal, how will breeding be effected? Will a Kanto region Vulpix be able to breed with an Alolan Vulpix and give them access to fire-type moves? Or are the forms akin to the Nidoran families?

 

[MisheardWhisper]

Biologically speaking, the two varieties should be able to breed - depending how long they've been separated. At the moment, they look like subspecies rather than discrete species in their own right, so I expect there won't be any issues. It seems most likely the offspring will inherit its characteristics from the mother, just like everything else (except egg moves and IVs from the father as usual).

On a vaguely related note, I've finally started 'fixing' my cadre of level 100 Pokemon. It was too much of a pain to EV train them before, so their stats are a total mess. Some have terribad natures, garbage IVs and/or the wrong ability too, but there's less I can do about that. So I'm farming the EV-adjustment berries and super training them to be semi-viable!

EDIT: Annnnd I just got a Hidden Ability Eevee. Praise be to kind strangers who toss their breeding rejects on Wonder Trade!

 

[AceTrainer14]

No offence, but I've never seen the point of EV training and all that personally. I can see why people do it, but Im happy with my Pokes the way they are

 

[MisheardWhisper]

I've had these guys for years, some of them have quite the story behind them. I guess I just feel I owe it to them to give them a new lease on life, as it were. They do their job in game, but I have mates that battle semi-competitively who I haven't been able to beat in years. It feels more appropriate to retrain the ones I've had since FireRed than breeding up a whole new set. I've never been a bit fan of micromanaging and metagaming in Pokemon, but it's so easy now between Super Training and those EV-reducing berries.

Also, I'm bored as shit this month since Pokemon GO turned out to be a flop and my supposed employer has been giving me the run around since like...May. :s

 

[AceTrainer14]

Yeah, Pokemon Go has been a bit of a bummer. If they don't release the Johto Pokemon soon I am probably going to have to give it up

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

I may have had somewhat of a passing interest in Pokemon Go if I actually owned a smartphone.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I wouldn't have bothered to fuss over EVs at all before Super Training - a feature I really like since it means you don't need three wiki tabs open and a lot of in-game faff. The more streamlining of the competitive features, the better, I say

 

[MisheardWhisper]

I EV-trained exactly three Pokemon prior to Gen VI and it was atrocious. You literally had to keep a notepad on hand with a live tally of how many Patrat you'd killed. Super Training was a gift from merciful gods.

I may have had somewhat of a passing interest in Pokemon Go if I actually owned a smartphone.

You're not missing much. It was really, really fun - bugs and all - for about a week, and then it crashed super hard in my estimation. The running around and catching Pokemon was fun, but the battling system was bogus as all hell (not to mention bugged to high heaven) and soon enough I'd caught pretty much everything available in my city. Between more bugs popping up on the daily, server issues (mercifully rectified since), Niantic refusing to so much as acknowledge the issues, an infestation of Pidgey in my neighbourhood, unnecessary difficulty curves designed to make you spend money on Poke Balls, and a creeping realisation that this game basically trampled on everything that made Pokemon special, dropping it was a no-brainer.

 

[Tophat Dragoneye]

I EV-trained exactly three Pokemon prior to Gen VI and it was atrocious. You literally had to keep a notepad on hand with a live tally of how many Patrat you'd killed. Super Training was a gift from merciful gods.



You're not missing much. It was really, really fun - bugs and all - for about a week, and then it crashed super hard in my estimation. The running around and catching Pokemon was fun, but the battling system was bogus as all hell (not to mention bugged to high heaven) and soon enough I'd caught pretty much everything available in my city. Between more bugs popping up on the daily, server issues (mercifully rectified since), Niantic refusing to so much as acknowledge the issues, an infestation of Pidgey in my neighbourhood, unnecessary difficulty curves designed to make you spend money on Poke Balls, and a creeping realisation that this game basically trampled on everything that made Pokemon special, dropping it was a no-brainer.

I personally don't see the doom and gloom you're painting. Niantic has worked their butts off trying to fix the issues, but you have to remember that they're still humans, not gods, something a lot of people forgets. Besides, It's not necessary to spend money on Pokéballs, you can always go to a hotspot and get some free ones (5, 10, maybe 15 at times etc.) and maybe an egg or two. I know I've done that ( and yes, I got an egg from one).
I personally use the app while i'm walking around in town and I even meet a couple of other people playing, and we talk about it from time to time. And that's the game's strength in my honest opinion. People socializing about something we all care about. Heck, I've even heard people are dating while playing Pokémon Go and children in hospitals playing the game, keeping their stay from being too stale.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Looking from the outside in, I can't help but wonder whether the social aspect of Go hasn't been exaggerated. Pokémon has always been a social game, to put it in context - it seems to me that the only real change is that people tend to meet one another spontaneously through Go, rather than choosing to do so through the main series games

 

[Tophat Dragoneye]

As a Pokémon Go player, I can safely say it hasn't been exaggerated from my personal experience. Pokémon in Denmark was never so big that you could go out and meet people and talk about it in the open, at least until Go came around.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

I did occasionally indulge in a bit of EV training prior to Gen VI, but it was always very tedious and annoying. To be fair Super Training kind of is as well, but at least you don't need to research what pokemon to go after, where to look for them, and then keep count on paper as you put purrloin on the endangered lists.

Hyper Training seems an interesting idea. Though I do hope it's not so simple as 'hand in bottle cap, instantly get perfect stats', like the trailers are implying. Maybe if each bottle cap only let you raise one IV to perfect, that'd keep breeding important, other than just for egg moves and natures, so players could pick and choose their favourite methods of getting high IV pokemon.

Have to say, the main thing I like about these newer methods is it lets one use the pokemon they have a history with, and not be punished for it, rather than having to breed new ones.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Incidentally I think the concept of that Grass/Water Bellossom on the Twitter feed is entirely cute and I must have one

 

[Instrutilus]

Grass/Water Bellossom? Can I have a link, please?

 

[Beth Pavell]

Take a look at the Twitter sidebar of the forum index, the Bulbagarden Twitter

 

[Instrutilus]

Ah, mine must have been slow. I just had the "I have the high ground Exeggutor" pictures on mine until 2 minutes ago.

 

[Life]

Might also be because they're on 2 different widgets d:

I've been planning some characters out a bit more in-depth recently to get a better feel for them and have been going through the process of jotting down all their important milestones up until they die. Kinda said to have gone from the beginning of their story to the end so fast. ;_; But I am getting a better idea of how to write them which is what my goal was, so yay.