Now that is a lie. They're not selling Pokemon. They're added to the games for free via updates.
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Holy shit: Pokémon Sword 2018 beta just leaked, including Pokémon that were cut in the final version. (Only 21 Pokemon modeled in)
- Thread starter Atheerios
- Start date
In areas you have to pay to access.
Or have to pay for Home to transfer.
I guess you can get them free if you do trades, but it'll take a lot longer.
I think its probably more because Sword and Shield's development started in late 2016, and Unreal 4 wasn't officially supported on the system for a good while after launch.
I don't get the sense that they're too precious about their engine tech, just that they never had the chance to transition to anything more fitting given the timescales of this project.
You can also trade with a friend, of course.
Just like you had to for the 400+ Pokémon that weren't natively available in Sun & Moon.
Stop this.
Because they either a. Want to sell you the cut Pokemon in DLC or b. Want to sell you cut Pokemon in a later game. The Pokemon Company is Nintendo's version of EA/2K. Cut features so you can add them later as a new feature.
That reminds me I wonder what Engine Bamco is using for New Pokemon Snap? I think that could be Unreal 4 used to look more closer to the look of Sword and Shield (just prettier).
Considering that all the post-launch legacy Pokémon have been patched into the game for free, I'd suggest that they're doing a lousy job of this.
Stop what? I don't really mind either way - more Pokemon is fine by me. But saying "free" with qualifiers isn't really free. It was applicable then and is now. You're paying in one form or another - money or time to get the Pokemon.
Yeah, I added that.
Anyway, I enjoyed Sw/Sh - I'm looking forward to CT. When does the store update in the UK/EU?
You don't need the pay for home to use it. In any case, previously, you'd need two GBA/DS/3DS and at least one copy of multiple generations to transfer them all to a single game on your own.
The argument that Pokémon preservation is currently worse makes no sense.
There was never a single Pokémon game where you could literally catch them all.
And are only available to get in the pay walled areas OR from a person who purchases the DLC. Someone has to buy it and you need to know someone who did.
You don't? Oh. Thought it limited it to so many trades, not giving storage too. I'll take it back then.
EDIT: That wasn't my point (it being harder).
As someone who had 2 of each Nintendo console/HH specifically to trade Pokemon I guess I'm an outlier. Still have all the games from the GBA onwards too.
Switching an engine means more time and resources dedicated to acclimating the developers to said engine. You can't just move over codebases and other work that easily, it's going to require a lot more time to get that up to speed, and Pokémon is a series on a strict time table. Also, we don't know whether UE4 even had full support on Switch at the point SwSh entered development.
Game Freak had a functional base with Let's Go, it made way more economical sense to use that work, and ensured compatibility.
Aside from the fact a few hundred are still unavailable, the method of getting those that aren't in the base game but are added back is no different whatsoever to every single game dating back to Gold & Silver which has left out Pokémon.
Allow me to share this table which shows how many Pokémon each game had natively missing
This is how it's always been and people now adding qualifiers to disparage are the issue
Note: The following has alleged spoiler counts from datamines for Pokémon
User Warned: Lazy Devs Rhetoric
In other words, Game Freak took the easy way to make a game that shares as much code as possible but would sell to people strictly because it's Pokemon. Sounds a lot like how EA/2K deal with their sports games.
edit: sorry for using the word lazy, that wasn't fair.
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Nope! You can grab a short-term Home subscription and transfer over your old Pokémon without touching the DLC, as you've been able to do for nearly a decade at this point.
If your expectation was that you'd be able to catch every Pokemon by yourself within the main game, then that's simply never how the series has worked.
Wait... do you think that games reusing engines and code from previous projects is a sign of laziness, rather than good sense?
Oh, wow, that lazy dev argument didn't take long to come up...
Difference here is you pay $5 for a single month of Home and you're set to transfer everything you have to a single game, as opposed to having to buy another portable console for the single purpose of bringing your monsters over.
In any case, the argument they're selling Pokémon, which is what was previously said, is a lie.
It has limited storage, but no limited transfers. Eventually, one will need to pay for something if they want to transfer large quantities of Pokémon.
Difference here is you pay $5 for a single month of Home and you're set to transfer everything you have to a single game, as opposed to having to buy another portable console for the single purpose of bringing your monsters over.
In any case, the argument they're selling Pokémon, which is what was previously said, is a lie.
Sounds a lot like you don't know how game development works.
Ah ok, thanks for the clarification. Wasn't sure as I had Home (+? Premium?) from the outset.
I've seen the counter points and you're both right, my bad.
Other game devs go to new engines when sequels happen. The excuse that GF doesn't have the resources or manpower to make a game that's better than "marginally better" is insulting to the consumer. Companies with a lot less make it happen, but GF isn't interested in making a better game. They're looking for "good enough" so they can check another game off their list to make some easy money now and later. Again, a lot like EA/2k with their sports titles.
Your first sentence alone is objectively wrong considering a majority of franchises these days run on Unreal Engine.
Also here's a fun fact for you; Super Smash Bros. has ran on the same codebase since Melee, yet that's the last franchise one would accuse of being lazy.
Not always. When it comes to sequels then a lot of the time it's built on the base of the prior one
And you'd be surprised at the amount of developers that grab assets from asset libraries
A quick heads-up- that's FAR less common than you seem to think, and I'd say that junking all of the previous work and starting again NEVER happens.
There's bits of code going all the way back to Super Mario 64 knocking around in Nintendo's 3D games to this very day.
But it's like
No other game has the scope of Pokémon in terms of models and even in the whole transfer. Very few games still let you transfer progress from something almost 2 decades ago
Digimon routinely rotates them out in games. Same with Yo-kai now
Most games typically use human models and any non human models are in the dozens, not 1000+ so any issue there can be resolved typically in one go. Take the oft-compared Breath of the Wild. Has a few dozen humanoid models but amount of enemies is a dozen at best, most being recolours.
When Dexit first came to be, so many developers came out to say they were surprised that this didn't happen sooner considering the scope and amount of work needed for each model.
People just don't get game development so attribute it to laziness, not an exponentially increasing workload which can easily cock up any time there's an engine or system shift
Wonder how they got the Beta in the first place. Not that usual to get this sort of material from recent/current-gen games (at least publicly I mean).
Looks about what you would expect from an unfinished project, not sure what folks were expecting from it. Cool logo though, shame they changed it in the end.
Looks about what you would expect from an unfinished project, not sure what folks were expecting from it. Cool logo though, shame they changed it in the end.
Yeah, I'm still amazed that it's even possible that +800 creatures have their own 3D model and animations, along with all of their technical info such as moves, abilities, stats, etc, and most of them still make it into each new game.
User Warned: Antagonizing Fellow Member
I'm sorry, but you're definitely not one to talk either.
Better than buying a whole new game to get an additional 101 pokemon without transfering with Pokemon Bank(Which you needed to pay for to even use, unlike home.)
DLC > 3rd/Sequel versions
Like say you're adding a new feature and that feature requires say 5 animations for a Pokémon
There are almost 900 Pokémon. Including different forms we're at 1200, though some have same structure so let's sit at 1100
That's 5,500 animations to do. Animations take a while to conceptualise, record, implant on the skeleton, test, fix if something's wrong and then finalise. Let's say, on a good day, it takes a day to do so for an animation
that's 5,500 work days to do. If you have a staff of 100 animators solely focused on that, it'd take 2 months just for that one small feature.
People just don't understand how these things work
Because I provide facts and logic?
Sure, if you say so. I won't turn this thread into that, consider it a drive-by and report it if need be.
I work on a similar game but no-where near comparable in terms of scope and scale to pokemon.
This is 100% correct.
I mean, while I STILL don't like how dexit was handled (for instance, would have been fine if non galarian native Pokemon were unable to camp to save on animations), but even then the animation load sounds really daunting, can't say I'd want tto be in Gamefreak's shoes there!
Also, I'm not a dev, but even I know this whole "Gamefreak is lazy because they're reusing old engine stuff" is total nonsense. If anything, I'd much rather they do that so they can focus their time on more important stuff. Like, Pokemon games are already rushed as is, I'd rather they reuse assets when they can than spend more time on them.
And it's not like engine and asset reuse is the sign of lazyness either. Hell, look at Nintendo themselves: Super Mario Maker 2, Splatoon 2, and Animal Crossing New Horizons share the same engine, and I wouldn't call any of those "lazy"!
Also, I'm not a dev, but even I know this whole "Gamefreak is lazy because they're reusing old engine stuff" is total nonsense. If anything, I'd much rather they do that so they can focus their time on more important stuff. Like, Pokemon games are already rushed as is, I'd rather they reuse assets when they can than spend more time on them.
And it's not like engine and asset reuse is the sign of lazyness either. Hell, look at Nintendo themselves: Super Mario Maker 2, Splatoon 2, and Animal Crossing New Horizons share the same engine, and I wouldn't call any of those "lazy"!
Thanks
Now everyone else, just imagine what happens if you have say 20+ animations for each thing and then when you transport it into the new engine/device it, as I'm sure those of you in 3D animation know happens, breaks.
That's 22,000 animations to fix, maybe re-record, test etc.
Nightmare scenario, and that's before adding and making new stuff
Of course I don't know that's what happened...I've heard various things through various grapevines, but just imagine the possibility.
Pokémon continually just adding and not temporarily culling things is unsustainable, as much as I want them to continue. It was/is inevitable
the pokemon are not sold as DLC, you can import them without the DLC. you just can't catch them in the game without the DLC which aligns with other pokemon games which require importing for a full dex.
Without meaning to speak for Joe, what he's talking about has been well-documented elsewhere- New Frame Plus had a good video covering a similar topic.
He's certainly got a better grasp of the fundamentals than someone who thinks that it's common for sequels to entirely change engine, to give an ENTIRELY random example.
What I don't like is how arbitrarily they seem to decide who gets in and who doesn't. I guess it's decided by looking at what's being used by the pro scene and in the meta, but shouldn't the casual fans have a say as well? It's a shame that so many fan favorites got left out...
I continue to suffer metric tons of second-hand embarrassment at some of the stupidity from arm-chair devs shitting on this beta, and their crackpot theories of how shit "really went down", and how lazy/incompetent they are.
I would never, ever blame a dev for straight up asking for their Era account to be closed. I can't imagine the blood pressure spikes from just glancing at a thread like this.
I would never, ever blame a dev for straight up asking for their Era account to be closed. I can't imagine the blood pressure spikes from just glancing at a thread like this.
Can we just threadmark this? Atheerios
And this?
If the fans had a say in all returning Pokémon, then many Pokémon would remain missing for ages. Remember, every Pokémon is somebody's favourite. They'll all get their spotlight eventually in this method.
They've always "arbirtrarily" decided what Pokémon are natively available in a game
I'm gonna go with no, unless your engine is majorly flawed you are gonna try and use the same engine for future titles because it allows the programmers to get used to creating content using it. If you keep switching can cause confusion if there is multiple projects going on at the same time. Now new versions of the engine will be used yes but the engine will still have legacy code and on average work the same but with new feature sets.
Was it inevitable because that's the reality of game development for this game or was it it inevitable because Nintendo/Game Freak/Creatures inc etc are so gunho about yearly releases with this franchise while seemingly being unable to or unwilling to scale up their staff in order to properly support yearly releases?
Because the other big players in the industry like EA, Activision, Ubisoft etc did just that they bolster up their numbers and created multiple teams within their studios in order to properly support yearly releases.
If you ask me having 150+ people working at Game Freak for a yearly franchise doesn't seem like it's enough in the year 2020.
It was inevitable because from a game development perspective it's a nightmare beyond most game scopes. Show me any game that has over 1000 non human models with vastly different skeletal structures and animations.
Also, yes Game Freak have 150 staff. However, Sword & Shield had over 1000 working on it. 3D Animation for example is done by Pokémon CG Studio within Creatures Inc., which has a variable 50 to 250 staff just working on 3D Models and animations. They also have multiple teams within their studios to support it
Personally not so much mad at GF in particular (though, unsure how wise it was to take on so many new projects consecutively considering their lack of experience in HD platforms, but they might not have had any actual say on that either) but more so the discourse surrounding this game.
The "it's impossible to have done any better!" talk gets annoying when it's clear that the game was very much rushed and had they been given the time they needed it would have been a better overall product. It's very much possible to take on a project of this scale and do better. GF know it, we know it. Alas, it all comes down to the one thing GF won't ever be afforded unless things take a drastic change: TIME.
It's all a matter of time.
Time GF doesn't get to actually have a decent dev cycle, time they don't get to implement whatever they wanna do each game, time they don't get to actually experiment with new concepts altogether and time they don't get to make structural -internal- changes. If they were given the chance to, lets say, double their staff as of today those changes would take quite a time to be felt (ie, whatever they're working on right now wouldn't suffer any changes due to that). The workflow and pipelines take some adjusting to make sure all those extra hands are doing something, you know, useful. So even in that regard once again it becomes a matter of time that they simply don't have because the Pokemon machine won't stop anytime soon.
When we look at projects like AC and CoD (the poster boys of annual releases in this day and age) you see that to get there, to the point they're at, it took multiple years of expansion and tightly controlled cycles. For both you have several studios working (individually or in cooperation) for each entry, which takes some ~5 to ~3 years to get done (the "soft" reboots usually take longer). And each game usually has hundreds if not thousands of people working on it (ie, TLOU2 had over 2K people working on it). This is the reality of the industry these days. GF on their own can't be expected to match this level of insanity, especially when they're not given the most crucial aspect of all of this: TIME TO ACTUALLY WORK ON THEIR PROJECTS.
Unless something changes in how Pokémon is managed, and that seems unlikely given the amount of money it continues to make, GF's hands are tied.
So the issue isn't so much with GF in particular, but this whole notion that it's impossible to do better. It is, it very much is, it just won't happen with the current status quo of the franchise. Which is a different issue altogether.
Pokémon games have over 1000 people working on them and have a development cycle of 3 or more years
Also, you seem to have a weird perception. Game Freak's hands are only tied after a certain point. Game Freak decide the scope of the next games, the time frame etc. and from that TPC etc. work to the same date and, once it hits a point of no return, then their hands are tied. We've seen delays before but they had enough heads up.
Game Freak are TPC's bosses. TPC are not Game Freak's bosses.
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No? Pretty much every studio does this, it's not GF being lazy. If you have a base to start with it doesn't make sense uprooting everything and using something else.