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Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

I certainly hope so, but right now there is just nothing that makes me want to buy the games. Unless I can secure a paid journalism thing through it, I probably won't bother getting it until I know what all the Pokemon are.
 
I don't allow myself many expenses just for fun, so I'll be getting one. I will say that I'm not wowed by a lot of the pokémon right now. There aren't many I actively dislike, but aside from Pikipek and Rowlet, there aren't any I simply must have either
 
For the first time in my life I probably won't be getting Sun/Moon on release date as I did with every other entry in the series. For me, the pokémon franchise has been steadily declining with each new release. Black and White were great, I loved them, and Black2/White2 were even better, and then X/Y happened... X/Y weren't bad per sé, but not very good either, and then ORAS was just a horrible train wreck which left a sour taste in my mouth. After that disappointment, I'm going to wait for a bit until after Sun/Moon come out, read some reviews, watch gameplay footage, and then decide if it's worth my time.
 
It is an utmost adversity and ultimate torture for me being a cat-lover seeing the nearby neighborhood having a cat, but I can't play nor touch their cat or else they'll scold or swear at me with extreme meanly attitude or even dare to call the police, yet I can't even have my own cat due to personal situation restriction problem.

It is a mental torment for every time I saw their cat past across the street, coming so close to my house where I can just catch it by simply walking out the front door, but I just can't, or more correctly speaking, I am forbade from doing so. :cry:
 
It is an utmost adversity and ultimate torture for me being a cat-lover seeing the nearby neighborhood having a cat, but I can't play nor touch their cat or else they'll scold or swear at me with extreme meanly attitude or even dare to call the police, yet I can't even have my own cat due to personal situation restriction problem.

It is a mental torment for every time I saw their cat past across the street, coming so close to my house where I can just catch it by simply walking out the front door, but I just can't, or more correctly speaking, I am forbade from doing so. :cry:
*gives a hug*
 
I'm really hyped for Sun/Moon. Maybe it's just the writer in me that's seeing all these new things and the potential stories they'll create, but there's something exciting about the upheaval Pokemon is currently going through.
 
It just feels like there is too much. I think they shouldve stuck with Mega Evos instead of bringing in the different forms. If anything, it feels like a soft relaunch. I wouldn't be surprised if, after the 1,000th episode airs next year, they bring in new main characters for the anime: Alolan Pikachu and Meowth would provide the perfect opportunity to change things but not actually change them.
 
I'd wait and see. Could well be that Z-Moves get pushed into the post-League and Alolan forms end up taking the space of what might otherwise be a larger Pokédex (Don't be surprised if a few months from now people are bitching about not enough Alolan species and not enough Eeveelutions). All that business with Team Skull, the Aether Foundation and UB-01 could very well be elements of the main plot that don't impact the game much afterwards.

My suspicion is that what's been revealed so far has been deliberately selected to appear to be represent more content than it actually does
 
I think they were just building up for the whole 20th anniversary thing. I've suspected that they would release a new gen soon, mostly because there weren't many in gen 6 to begin with. After gen 5, it seems like they've been trying to bring it back to the older gens. First mega evos, and now Alolan forms. I mean, most of the reason I didn't like gen five was because all of the pokemon were new. They had never done that before in any gen, even gen 3 had some pre-evos of old pokemon.

And they're adding new mechanics like Z-moves to keep the meta-game fresh. Not to mention making pokemon snap a part of the main series. I don't know, I'm just super excited for these new games.
 
So...guess who helped out with making the youtube coverage for the last trailers :D my incessant ability to nitpick at everything was helpful!

As for everything that was revealed, I actually think this game might be more story focused with everything tha'ts been show. Assuming that the whole Zygarde thing and Ultra Beasts thing is part of the main plot along with going against Team Skull (and possibly Aether) as well as Solgaleo's/Lunala's plot well...considering there isn't a league this time it'll make sense for it to be more story oriented.
 
I just hope it's a better story than Delta Episode. First rule of roleplaying: the game is not an excuse for the GM to show off how badass their NPCs are. Second rule of roleplaying: the players are the heroes, the players drive the plot
 
GF was never any genius in RPG game design. They may be good in casual monster collection gameplay design, but unfortunately they are just suckers in traditional J-RPG gameplay design. Sorry but that is just how I see GF on gameplay design aptitude, considering all the Pokemon main series game so far.
Very simple sign of that is, when you go to official website of Pokemon main series game, how did GF introduce the story and overworld and characters of the game to the audience? That is just not the way I saw in official websites of so many other J-RPG games.

I guess GF's game design motto is just that "Simplicity is the best", which doesn't resonate to me being a RPG specialist.
 
I'm inclined to agree, insofar as the sparse story of most of the previous games tended to work because it was sparse. Delta Episode has nowhere to hide the flaws in the story, which doesn't really fill me with confidence at the (possible) prospect of a more story-heavy Gen VII
 
I thought the Delta Episode was fine as a post-game thing. In terms of gameplay it wasn't great (too much jumping around the region, boring battles) but it's story was decent as far as expanding the lore and bringing Rayquaza and Deoxys into the plot.

Not that I've ever played a Pokemon game for its story, mind you. Black and White were pleasant surprises but by and large these are games you play because they're mindless fun not because it's deep world building, story and cast of characters (if I want that, I look for something from Atlus, Bamco or Square Enix). All Sun/Moon has to do is to tie all the elements it's introducing together into something coherent and hopefully the two-three years they've had since ORAS will have helped Game Freak achieve that.
 
story was decent as far as expanding the lore and bringing Rayquaza and Deoxys into the plot

Well, the history was clunkily done, but then always has to be in games, so it gets a pass on principle. What killed in my eyes it was ignoring essential RPG storytelling. The player trails around after an NPC who drives the plot while showing off how cool she is. In an RPG the audience isn't supposed to be a spectator as they are reading a book or watching a film. In Delta Episode the PC isn't really a participant in the plot until the very last minute - up until you catch Rayquaza none of your actions really have any effect on the story at all.

It doesn't help, then, that the exposition is delivered patronisingly from the creator's pet NPC. I don't much like the whole trope of super-secret lore held by hidden tribes over cartoonishly long periods of time in any case - but I think it would have been easier to swallow had it been dealt with more elegantly.

It just goes to show that ideas are the very easiest part of writing (Any writing). The idea of Rayquaza being at the centre of another apocalypse story does make a neat little trinity of Team Magma/Team Aqua/Zinnia
 
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but this bit I have a slight issue with:

The player trails around after an NPC who drives the plot while showing off how cool she is. In an RPG the audience isn't supposed to be a spectator as they are reading a book or watching a film. In Delta Episode the PC isn't really a participant in the plot until the very last minute - up until you catch Rayquaza none of your actions really have any effect on the story at all.

The PC, for me, isn't actually a spectator because it's the chase itself that makes them an active participant, frustrating as it may be from a gameplay perspective. The PC effects the story simply by a) having a Mega Stone and b) having the Meteorite. One way or another they're going to get dragged into it.

At least, when I played it I didn't feel like a spectator to the events.
 
Delta Episode had a pretty good idea that admittedly didn't fit in a video game. The way it was done would've worked better in a film or a series or something where the whole point is for you to just watch, but when you're just jumping around from place to place just to get the next bit of lore handed out to you, it kind of spoils it. Again it was a cool idea and I didn't mind it so much myself but I think it was an idea good enough to be developed in its own game throughout the game as opposed to post-game.

However it is a pretty tough idea to work around with and the way they did it to try to justify it fitting in a game makes it hard to adapt to boot. I still haven't read it but apparently the ORAS arc in the manga has been the least popular arc in a while because it tried to adapt the whole of th edelta episode while also showcasing the other things that were put in ORAS as a whole.
 
At least, when I played it I didn't feel like a spectator to the events.

Well, I won't be so churlish as to argue with your experience of playing the game, but I will say this: the chase is undermined by the events in the Slateport villain base. You actually catch up with Zinnia, but the game doesn't let you battle her, or do anything other than literally just walk through the door in front of you. The PC in that moment is literally a spectator to events.

What's so frustrating about that is that it should be such an easy fix - redesign the base for another way out, have her use an Escape Rope, hell, have her mysteriously teleport away, anything. A lot of Delta Episode is like that. If Zinnia tried to reason with the scientists in the first place and was dismissed she wouldn't be as much of a recklessly arrogant jerk. If at some point the PC is shown how Zinnia knows about the alternate Hoenn she'd more more of a genuine anti-hero (Which would be a lot more effective than just throwing "dead Aster feel sorry for her" at the audience)
 
Speaking of the manga, I still need to add FR/LG and BW to my collection. Will probably give ORAS a miss, not for the Delta Episode stuff, but because the ending of the Ruby/Sapphire arc was so hilariously bad I have no desire to revisit that part of the story.

Anyway, just to bring the discussion back to where it started: I have a slim hope that Game Freak can produce a decent story for Sun/Moon, if they are to be more story-focused additions to the series. Delta Episode seemed like too big an idea to cram into an hour's worth of post-game content, which would explain the faults it has, whereas they'll have the entirety of Sun/Moon to put all their ideas together.
 
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