PAX Pokemon League

Submitted without comment

http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/10/93000 ... id-ingress

I AM EXCITED BUT I AM SCARED

-A short summary of my feelings

The trailer got me sufficiently hyped, but there are so many red flags. On a phone, free to play with micro transactions, interacting with others... outside...

I'm afraid it's going to turn into "You ran out of Pokeballs, give us money to get more so you can catch more Pokemon". I would much rather just pay X amount of dollars and just get all content with no limits like that. Free to play games often turn into well, you started playing for free, but in order to actually enjoy the game after the hype wears off you are going to end up spending more than any full price game.

I also don't like being forced to play with others, so hopefully there are no things that you can't get on your own. The Mewtwo part of the trailer looked bad ass, but it makes me think that there will be event like Pokemon that you can only get by doing some sort of group activity. That would probably require you to go to some place that is unreasonably far away and it will likely have connectivity issues that will screw some people over.

I just want to be able to get out of my car and run into a Growlithe/Dratini and I'll be ok.

The trailer was sufficiently cheesy, but I'm kinda hyped. Free-to-play makes me cautious but Pokemon Shuffle and Pokemon Rumble World were pretty good at balancing pay vs play so I'm optimistic!

Small potential positive re: in app purchases for balls-the sprites they used were the same as in shuffle. If it turns out you get x free normal balls and can use in game currency (from battling trainers?) to get great balls like in shuffle (with real monies for ultra+) I am a-ok with that. The people in Google who do Ingress the game are working with Nintendo on this, so I'm pretty hyped

I feel like the sort of connectivity they're promoting would be greatly hindered by paying for extras. Free to play, pay to do a little better....maybe. But still, seems to go against what they're trying to do.

But I guess a business is a business...we'll have to see.

Making it free to play with Microtransactions makes it more accessible to people. I think letting people enjoy this game (which is clearly targeted to "adults") who have so many other finacial demands, is the best course of action for Pokemon.

People are stressing out way too much about the price point before we even have information. I've played Pokemon's FTP* games as well as Ingress and my assumption is that the thing likely to cost money is extra pokeballs. You might start with six and every half hour or an hour you generate a new one with a soft cap of six ( meaning you can't have more than that unless you buy them.) Even if it's less than six, the game promotes walking and exploring, so the impact of waiting for balls to refresh is eased by the time it takes to travel.

If you're just going to hop in your car and pull over to catch Pokemon then yes, it's going to feel annoying because you are covering a lot more ground much more quickly.

Things like event Pokemon will be held at sponsored gatherings where it looks like you'll need to work together with others to decrease the Event Pokemon's health enough to unlock it for everyone.

Whether you need to be social or not depends on if you can be tagged for battle regardless of if you want to or not. In Ingress your portals are always open to being attacked, and in the trailer, a trainer is seen getting ambushed on the bridge. There may or may not be an "open battle" flag for your account.

My hope is that items like potions, balls, honey can all be found by traveling. Like having Pick Up. And I'm curious to find out what the perk of battling (and winning) is.

Coco makes a good point. If you've played Ingress (I haven't but I know a few people who have/have tagged along while they capture enemy bases) but the payment structure is usually pretty unobtrusive.

I'm mainly worried that it's not actually going to be much fun to play.

I've played a bit of Ingress and normally you can progress at a comfortable pace without spending cent. The microtransactions came in for those who wanted to speed up or to turn the tide in a territory grab between factions. Mostly if you live in an area with several other active players you don't usually need to buy anything.

Hopefully the same ideals carry over to Go, though I share Prop's concern of the fun factor. There will certainly be the joy of the hunt but what happens after that?