Post by oceanblack on Mar 8, 2009 13:12:41 GMT -5
I just want to begin by saying that I'm not pointing the finger at anyone. Some of you may have guesses if I'm referring to anyone specifically, and your guesses may even be right. But, if I were going to blame anyone for any problems around here, then all would be to blame. But the blame game's lame :]
Now, I havent been a member of the HoF team for very long, but I think I was hired on in high esteem right from the start. As a Concept Designer, I dont think my job is really all that crucial. Mostly, I just sort out ideas as they are presented. Someone else could do it, but I think only certain individuals are capable of the job. Those that welcomed me aboard must think I am one of those individuals, so this is my current synopsis of the events so far.
***
Pokemon Hall of Fame is a great concept. I like to think big, so a game that plans to have all the regions, every species, and so on, is a fun idea to me. However, I think its obvious what an unfathomable task this really is. Taking the contents of 12-13 years of video games and fusing it together in a seamless final product. Many would say it's impossible. And indeed, it is pretty close to it. But that doesnt meant it actually is impossible. It just needs the right kind of guidance, the proper amount of determination, and faith in sticking to what makes pokemon great to begin with.
CONCEPT
What IS HoF? Well, so far it's been established to be a multi-region, all inclusive pokemon game. But is that it? Well, there are other ideas that have been discussed, like adding new battle frontier features, an enormous amount of environmental interaction via HMs and such, and even the inclusion of a large number of additional new pokemon species, which would bring the number well over 500, possibly close to a thousand. This may sound excessive, and as a matter of fact, it is. And that is what brings me to my point. This game is both expansive, and excessive. One quality is good to have, while another is bad to have. An expansive game features a large amount of features and is fun for players, and easy to get into. An excessive games features way too much content, which bogs down the player, and takes way too much effort to get into. There are lots of problems with adding a lot of content to make the game seem more "fresh," when really all we are doing is making the game even harder to get into. When people want to play pokemon, there are certain things they are going to expect, and giving them too much different new stuff is going to mindfuck new players, and alienate veterans.
As of right now, I fear that HoF is crossing the line into excessive, and losing sight of what makes it great, which is being expansive. So, how do we deal with this? Well, there are a number of ways really, but they all involve limiting game content. This sounds like the opposite of what we want, in an "all-inclusive" pokemon game. However, what matters is what we are limiting, and what we are expanding. We need to make decisions on what we put in, and not be afraid to say "okay, this might be excessive, we can do without it." If we dont use such a filter, the game will become an infinitely large, unplayable mess.
We need a specified Mission Statement. Obviously, Oswald is the only person who can make the definitive mission statement, which clearly points out what he wants to accomplish with this game, his CONCEPT. To come up with that, he is going to be discussing it with the staff more until he comes up with the definitive mission statement. I think its more important now than ever to have one with the ever-growing team and the loss of certain key members.
GAME BALANCE
Another seperate but related, and all consuming issue with Hall of Fame is a matter of game balance. This isnt a game designed for hardcore pokemon battling tournaments, but there are lots of issues that need to be decided upon. Issues involving level caps, gym trainers across regions, typing and stats for a whole extra generation of new species... Which is where the problem of being excessive comes back into play. The more excessive a game is, the more unbalancing it is. Its impossible to make a game work smoothly when it has too much content. I think we need to take a step back and consider a few things involving game balance.
Additional/Reformed element typing? Honestly, I think this is really excessive. Why fix what isnt broken? And the current type list isnt broken, its worked out just fine given the current distribution of pokemon types, stat averages, movesets, and so on. These are all things that need to be considered on a case by case basis for game balance's sake. This took the original pokemon game designers many grueling hours to come up with such a huge list without pokemon that completely dominate the game. Mewtwo and most legendaries aside (as they are intended to be superior), their only mistake in nearly 500 species of pokemon, was Wobbuffett. (if ayone would like to discuss why I say this about Wobbs, feel free to PM me)
In order to streamline this game while adding as much as we can, and avoid the issue of excessiveness, we should leave as much of the game mechanics as unchanged as we can. If we change every pokemons typing, movesets, stats, EVs, we are not only giving ourselves WAYYY too much work for a team of amateurs to do, but are ruining all the things that have made pokemon such a great series. I bolded that statement, because I think if there is one thing I want you to get out of this overly long post, it's that.
SYNERGY/BURNOUT
Yet another issue with being excessive is that we lack synergy. We hardly even know what we are working towards, because there is just so much to do. Jobs need to be made smaller, and clearer. Also, there is the problem of burnout. It may not be common knowledge amongst all reading this, but I am deciding to bring this right in the open: Virtually every single member of this staff who has been here for an extended amount of time are ALL on the verge of leaving the project, all for various reasons. Thats a scary idea to someone who wants to see this game reach completion. Sometimes, real life gets the better of us, and there is nothing we can do about it. Many, however, are simply feeling burnt out. The game is barely crawling because of the massive amount of, you guessed it, excess data. I dont want to see people i've taken the time to get to know begin disappearing because of this. Teams with history and comraderie work the fastest, and create the best products. If we want Hall of Fame to be a great game, then we have to stick together. And the only way we are going to be willing to do that is by making some real changes.
CONCLUSION
I know this has been a pretty damn long post, and I'm sorry if it was a lot to take in. However, I feel it was necessary to lay all this out. We are losing members, many which could be prevented. What we need to do now, is discuss what we actually want to do. What do we (and I mean WE, all of us involved, not just the project headliners) want to see in the Pokemon Hall of Fame? What do we think the general populace is going to enjoy the most in our game, and how do we capitalize on that?
I very strongly feel that by sticking to as many classical aspects of pokemon, while only expanding where we can to make the game more exciting, instead of a "new" kind of game, we will be able to creat soemthing people in the pokemon community will talk about for years.
Fuck adding 20 new element types, Fuck adding challenge upon ever increasing, simplistic battle challenge. Fuck reoraganzing the entire universes set of moves, stats, abilities, etc. Fuck adding 600 new made up pokemon that will never be as memorable as the originals. Fuck all that exscessive rubbish, I say. People arent going to play HoF and be glad we added so much made up unecessary shit, theyre going to be repelled by not seeing enough of what they came to love in pokemon.
A game with every region, and all species is an amazing idea. Working it into a world spanning story is even better. And it CAN be done. A truly epic pokemon game can be made without being excessive.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post concerning my current thoughts on Pokemon Hall of Fame.
Now, I havent been a member of the HoF team for very long, but I think I was hired on in high esteem right from the start. As a Concept Designer, I dont think my job is really all that crucial. Mostly, I just sort out ideas as they are presented. Someone else could do it, but I think only certain individuals are capable of the job. Those that welcomed me aboard must think I am one of those individuals, so this is my current synopsis of the events so far.
***
Pokemon Hall of Fame is a great concept. I like to think big, so a game that plans to have all the regions, every species, and so on, is a fun idea to me. However, I think its obvious what an unfathomable task this really is. Taking the contents of 12-13 years of video games and fusing it together in a seamless final product. Many would say it's impossible. And indeed, it is pretty close to it. But that doesnt meant it actually is impossible. It just needs the right kind of guidance, the proper amount of determination, and faith in sticking to what makes pokemon great to begin with.
CONCEPT
What IS HoF? Well, so far it's been established to be a multi-region, all inclusive pokemon game. But is that it? Well, there are other ideas that have been discussed, like adding new battle frontier features, an enormous amount of environmental interaction via HMs and such, and even the inclusion of a large number of additional new pokemon species, which would bring the number well over 500, possibly close to a thousand. This may sound excessive, and as a matter of fact, it is. And that is what brings me to my point. This game is both expansive, and excessive. One quality is good to have, while another is bad to have. An expansive game features a large amount of features and is fun for players, and easy to get into. An excessive games features way too much content, which bogs down the player, and takes way too much effort to get into. There are lots of problems with adding a lot of content to make the game seem more "fresh," when really all we are doing is making the game even harder to get into. When people want to play pokemon, there are certain things they are going to expect, and giving them too much different new stuff is going to mindfuck new players, and alienate veterans.
As of right now, I fear that HoF is crossing the line into excessive, and losing sight of what makes it great, which is being expansive. So, how do we deal with this? Well, there are a number of ways really, but they all involve limiting game content. This sounds like the opposite of what we want, in an "all-inclusive" pokemon game. However, what matters is what we are limiting, and what we are expanding. We need to make decisions on what we put in, and not be afraid to say "okay, this might be excessive, we can do without it." If we dont use such a filter, the game will become an infinitely large, unplayable mess.
We need a specified Mission Statement. Obviously, Oswald is the only person who can make the definitive mission statement, which clearly points out what he wants to accomplish with this game, his CONCEPT. To come up with that, he is going to be discussing it with the staff more until he comes up with the definitive mission statement. I think its more important now than ever to have one with the ever-growing team and the loss of certain key members.
GAME BALANCE
Another seperate but related, and all consuming issue with Hall of Fame is a matter of game balance. This isnt a game designed for hardcore pokemon battling tournaments, but there are lots of issues that need to be decided upon. Issues involving level caps, gym trainers across regions, typing and stats for a whole extra generation of new species... Which is where the problem of being excessive comes back into play. The more excessive a game is, the more unbalancing it is. Its impossible to make a game work smoothly when it has too much content. I think we need to take a step back and consider a few things involving game balance.
Additional/Reformed element typing? Honestly, I think this is really excessive. Why fix what isnt broken? And the current type list isnt broken, its worked out just fine given the current distribution of pokemon types, stat averages, movesets, and so on. These are all things that need to be considered on a case by case basis for game balance's sake. This took the original pokemon game designers many grueling hours to come up with such a huge list without pokemon that completely dominate the game. Mewtwo and most legendaries aside (as they are intended to be superior), their only mistake in nearly 500 species of pokemon, was Wobbuffett. (if ayone would like to discuss why I say this about Wobbs, feel free to PM me)
In order to streamline this game while adding as much as we can, and avoid the issue of excessiveness, we should leave as much of the game mechanics as unchanged as we can. If we change every pokemons typing, movesets, stats, EVs, we are not only giving ourselves WAYYY too much work for a team of amateurs to do, but are ruining all the things that have made pokemon such a great series. I bolded that statement, because I think if there is one thing I want you to get out of this overly long post, it's that.
SYNERGY/BURNOUT
Yet another issue with being excessive is that we lack synergy. We hardly even know what we are working towards, because there is just so much to do. Jobs need to be made smaller, and clearer. Also, there is the problem of burnout. It may not be common knowledge amongst all reading this, but I am deciding to bring this right in the open: Virtually every single member of this staff who has been here for an extended amount of time are ALL on the verge of leaving the project, all for various reasons. Thats a scary idea to someone who wants to see this game reach completion. Sometimes, real life gets the better of us, and there is nothing we can do about it. Many, however, are simply feeling burnt out. The game is barely crawling because of the massive amount of, you guessed it, excess data. I dont want to see people i've taken the time to get to know begin disappearing because of this. Teams with history and comraderie work the fastest, and create the best products. If we want Hall of Fame to be a great game, then we have to stick together. And the only way we are going to be willing to do that is by making some real changes.
CONCLUSION
I know this has been a pretty damn long post, and I'm sorry if it was a lot to take in. However, I feel it was necessary to lay all this out. We are losing members, many which could be prevented. What we need to do now, is discuss what we actually want to do. What do we (and I mean WE, all of us involved, not just the project headliners) want to see in the Pokemon Hall of Fame? What do we think the general populace is going to enjoy the most in our game, and how do we capitalize on that?
I very strongly feel that by sticking to as many classical aspects of pokemon, while only expanding where we can to make the game more exciting, instead of a "new" kind of game, we will be able to creat soemthing people in the pokemon community will talk about for years.
Fuck adding 20 new element types, Fuck adding challenge upon ever increasing, simplistic battle challenge. Fuck reoraganzing the entire universes set of moves, stats, abilities, etc. Fuck adding 600 new made up pokemon that will never be as memorable as the originals. Fuck all that exscessive rubbish, I say. People arent going to play HoF and be glad we added so much made up unecessary shit, theyre going to be repelled by not seeing enough of what they came to love in pokemon.
A game with every region, and all species is an amazing idea. Working it into a world spanning story is even better. And it CAN be done. A truly epic pokemon game can be made without being excessive.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post concerning my current thoughts on Pokemon Hall of Fame.