While “failure” isn’t in the announcement… the marketing department says that says that they are set to complete a two year story arc and that not all games are meant to last forever… I am pretty sure if the title were bringing in even a quarter of the money that Pokemon Go still manages to grab we would be hearing about a bright future for the game. But the numbers I find on the web seem to indicate the title made about as much over two years as Pokemon Go makes on a good, but not great, month.
So how can a game that is pretty much the same as Pokemon Go, just dressed up in a different but extremely popular IP, fail to gain the same traction?
Wait, did I just answer the headline question there? Maybe, and I certainly have opinions as to what went wrong.
My experience with Harry Potter Wizards Unite is somewhat limited. As my wife and I approached the level 40 cap then in place in Pokemon Go, we thought we might give the recently launched Harry Potter game from Niantic a try. If there is an IP more popular in our household than Pokemon, it is Harry Potter, since my daughter and I both read the books and my wife likes the movies.
I grabbed a copy from the App Store, which was a bit of a challenge as I wasn’t quite clear what the game was called and if you search on “Harry Potter” there are a lot of results, which is a problem right away. Wizards Unite was not, and is not, the only Harry Potter game in the store. But I managed to find the right app, downloaded it, and signed up.
I got through the intro and into the game where I went over to the park near us where there is a Pokestop and a gym in Pokemon Go to find there a fortress and something else… I don’t recall now… and there were things to catch or battle by doing wand motions, but it all looked very much like a re-skin of Pokemon Go.
I didn’t hate it, but nothing about it really grabbed me and when Pokemon Go upped the level cap to 50 my wife and I just carried on with that and never looked back at Harry Potter Wizards Unite again.
So I made it to level 10 and stopped, that hardly makes me an expert on the game. Fair point. But as a fan of the franchise, I still wondered why it didn’t grab me. I should have been in the prime demographic for the title. But here’s the thing.
Pokemon Go is a brilliant translation of the franchise into a mobile AR enabled game. As a player you get to become that 10 year old in every one of the core RPG titles and go out into a world inhabited by Pokemon to catch, collect, and trade them. You get to battle in gyms, battle other players, and even fight against the legendary Team Rocket and its leadership. It took a while to get all that in play, but even at launch it convinced me it was a Pokemon game to play.
That is almost the core of the entire franchise, which was based on a video game that came out in 1996 which did pretty much those things. The collectible card game, the TV shows, the movies, the spin off games, they have built on and expanded beyond that core, but the core is still there. If you played Pokemon on your GameBoy or DS, you left you house in the game to do all those things.
Harry Potter doesn’t benefit from that. Based on the books and a series of popular movies, Harry Potter always feels like we’re going some place else. Our world is parallel to the world of Harry Potter, and wizards pass through our muggle society, but they are of a different realm entirely, and the magic of the series is being let into that realm and going to places that aren’t in our neighborhood or across town at the community center.
Basically, Pokemon Go can make you feel like a Pokemon trainer, but Harry Potter Wizards Unite never made me feel like a wizard. My local park spawning Pokemon and having a gym seems is adorable, the same location with a wizard fortress… well, it doesn’t really sell me. The park isn’t dark and foreboding, it is a happy place with grass and a playground and kids playing. It is a place where Pokemon fit right in and wizards probably don’t show up until past my bed time.
We’re probably bordering on that immersion topic I have been harping about. Maybe there is a post about Pokemon Go possible in that series. I’ve been to Minecraft already, so why not? I certainly seem to be making a “sense of place” argument here and how Pokemon Go succeeds and Harry Potter Wizards Unite fails.
Which isn’t to say that great Harry Potter games are not possible.
I thought the LEGO Harry Potter titles were great, as an example. But you know what LEGO Harry Potter did? It brought you into the world of the books, reimagined in LEGO form, and let you explore an experience that world and the stories we know from it in a fun and whimsical fashion.
And that, I think is the key. If it sent me off to a LEGO version of my park, that would be kind of cool, but it wouldn’t be Harry Potter.
So that is my working theory. Harry Potter Wizards Unite did not capture the essence of Harry Potter the way Pokemon Go did with Pokemon.
Honestly, I think it would be tough for a lot of IPs to work well in the structure of Pokemon Go. I can’t really see Star Wars or Lord of the Rings working at my local park either. Maybe Star Trek, as time traveling away teams are canon, or perhaps some sort of superhero IP, but it would have to be done just right.
Pokemon Go just caught the lightning because it was just the right IP at the right time on the right platform.
With the declaration that things were headed back to normal in May, Niantic immediately started making noises about rolling out some of the changes they had put in place in Pokemon Go during the pandemic.
Now, they certainly were not going to remove remote raid passes, something they added in response to COVID, because I am sure they are a big money maker for the company. But they did throttle back on their usefulness. They weren’t nerfed into oblivion, but if you started a raid with one it would be limited to 10 people and the damage output of remote raiders was dialed back. Kind of a pain, but tolerable. Our remote raid pass text group can still take down a five star boss if we can get six of us in the fight.
There were a few other changes, but the kicker, the one that got people howling, was the reduction in range when it came to accessing gyms and Pokestops. In order to facilitate people being able to raid and battle in public during the pandemic they had doubled the range at which you could access gyms and Pokestops from 40 meters to 80 meters.
That is kind of a lot, and we immediately got used to that range. We live in an area with a lot of gyms around, and that range puts a lot of them in range from the street, so my wife and I would go out and battle roll in the car, taking gyms and spinning Pokestops without having to stop and, in a couple cases, stand in the middle of somebody’s condo complex to battle.
So when Niantic pulled it, the change was immediately noticeable. We had gotten used to the 80m range so quickly it was hard to recall the before times. And we were not the only ones who felt the blow. Lots of people complained, signed petitions, ranted on forums, and generally tried to raise an internet ruckus while Niantic seems quite unmoved.
This is one of those things where I wonder if the decision was even up to Niantic. When they announced the roll back for Pokemon Go I went and checked their news for their other games, Ingress and that horrible Harry Potty skinned version of Pokemon Go, and the company wasn’t putting out press releases about post-COVID roll backs for those titles.
So I suspect, even if I cannot prove, that it was The Pokemon Company… which, given the ownership balance, is pretty much a sock puppet for Nintendo… that was calling the shots on this front.
The Pokemon Company oversees the Pokemon franchise with an iron fist and, because Nintendo has the biggest voice in the company, it also tends to reflect some of Nintendo’s obsessions, like health and forcing community interaction. Some of that obsession has turned into fun features. I liked the PokeWalker that came with Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver, and the whole Street Pass thing with the Nintendo 3DS series was genius. But sometimes they push things a bit far, so I could see somebody at TPC declaring that 80m wasn’t close enough to foster community.
We had a grand old time with Pokemon Go Fest and sat on the steps of the old post office building with a crowd of fellow players and hit the four gyms in range without remote raid passes as we swapped stories and exchanged friend codes. I think we were honestly more social being able to congregate in one place. But you can’t tell Nintedo that.
But then the whole idea that the pandemic was over went out the window with the Delta variant and now ICU beds in red states are full of people who refused to get vaccinated to “own the libs” and makes and quarantines and working from home and remote schooling all possible in our reality again soon because we just can’t take this stuff seriously.
And so this past week Niantic announced that their task force studying player feedback on their pandemic feature roll back would be presenting their results on September 1st. Yeah sure, whatever.
But they did say that the interaction range with gyms and Pokestops would be swapped back immediately and permanently to 80m. Somebody saw the light… or felt the community wrath.
Trainers – we’re looking forward to sharing our plans as a result of the task force on September 1, but one thing does not have to wait! From now on, 80 meters will be the base interaction radius for PokéStops and Gyms globally. (1/2)
I texted my wife, who was out and about, and she confirmed that the 80m range seemed to be back in place. So we’re happy again. We’re going on a trip soon… if it isn’t scuttled by COVID… and having that extra range in a new place will make for some easier Pokemon adventures out in the world.
We heard back in February that the next Pokemon title for the Switch would be remakes of Pokemon Diamond & Pearl, something my daughter and I had been waiting for. As a follow on, we have now been given a date for the launch of the remake.
Sinnoh is returning
The launch date for Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl is November 19, 2021.
The Nintendo site has an updated descriptions of how they plan to recreate the original Nintendo DS experience and what to expect.
In addition, the other upcoming Pokemon title, Pokemon Legends: Arceus also got a launch date this past week. We will be able to experience this “bold new direction” for the Pokemon series come January 28, 2022.
So we have some old and new Pokemon experiences coming up. I am definitely up for Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, though I hope the release doesn’t overlap too closely with Diablo II: Resurrected. While we don’t have a firm date for the Diablo II remake, it was said that it would be available near the end of 2021, and no studio wants to launch after Christmas, so November seems a likely time for it as well. We shall see.
As of a post earlier this week I had a post up every single day for an entire year. The last day here on the site without a post was March 27, 2020.
Filled in the blocks for a full year
Like a lot of such achievements, I did not set out to do this, but once I noticed it was happening. I rolled into last April with a plan to post every day due to the Blapril event. Making it through that I had enough momentum to bring me through May and into June. Then a war started brewing in EVE Online, which was fresh and exciting in late June of last year, but which has grown routine by now. That gave me a lot to post about and I decided to stretch my posting run into August for the Blaugust celebration. And once I had gotten through that I had almost a half a year streak going, so why not carry on.
As for what it means… well, it doesn’t really mean anything. It is my own little post streak. I think the previous such streak went for four months. I just have to decide how much it really means to me to have an unbroken run of daily posts, because once I let it lapse it will take me at least a year to get back.
I will say that it is a good thing I made it to this milestone, such that it is, this week. Because this week saw WordPress.com finally delete the old classic editor, which I have been using for more than 14 years at this point, in order to force users into their new block editor, which was designed by a sadist and implemented by people who clearly don’t have to use it. It impedes my ability to write.
Seriously, it sucks. Even the classic block, which they claim is the same as the classic editor, sucks. Features are missing, it keeps asking me if I want to convert to other blocks, everything takes a few more clicks to accomplish, and it is rather insistent that 24 time doesn’t exist. And don’t get me started on what happens to a post if you accidentally click that persistent “convert to blocks” button if you’re working in the classic block tab. I had to throw away a post and start over it was so mangled.
And they also did away with the old dashboard and stats, so even managing posts and comments and such is a huge pain in the ass now. And data I used for things like my annual review post… well, that is just no longer accessible.
It is all a punch in the gut that doesn’t make me enthusiastic to post every day.
I sent in a complaint detailing all of this and I expect to hear back from one of their “Happiness Engineers” ignoring everything I wrote and gushing about how wonderful the block editor is with a link to a video. The next helpful response I get from them will be the first.
Addendum: I enabled the new “Advanced Dashboard Pages” option and got back the ability to use the old Classic Editor once more. So yay! Why it was linked to that option I cannot explain, but I’ll take it.
One Year Ago
Oh man, it was the start of the pandemic lockdown, the March that lasted forever as we all learned how to stay home. Fortunately I received a Ninendo Switch Lite for my birthday to keep me busy.
I did another poll about which voice service people were using. Discord swept the poll.
There was a question as to whether of not there should be a shooter from CCP like Project Nova.
Out in space we were packing up to head home from Venal. Liberty Squad was done as Terrifying League of Dog Fort corp, which was running the group, left the alliance to find adventure elsewhere.
There was a plan for Blapril, an early run at Blaugust, as we were all home with free time.
Also in EverQuest II the PvP version of their retro nostalgia server, Deathtoll, was getting folded into the PvE version, Stormhold, due to lack of interest, thus ending open world PvP in the game outside of that Russian server. I was looking for nostalgia on the Stormhold side of things again.
The monthly EVE Online update introduced Project Discovery and made it so you had to be mutual friends in order to track somebody’s online status in your contact list. The month’s blog banter wanted people to imagine other games based off of the EVE Online IP, so I went with something akin to Diplomacy.
There were a bunch of little EVE Online things, like server upgrades, downtime compensation, and skill injector fun that I put into one bullet points post. I like those posts when I do them, I hate them a year later when I want to do my summary. It is easier when each topic has its own post!
Fighting was going on as the Casino War widened. Some of the coalition was staged in Saranen, which meant flying quite a ways to defend territory on the far side of Tribute, including an unfortunate event with a Higgs anchor rig on my Guardian. There were things going on in several regions, including a really good brawl in Fade.
Then the weight in numbers began to tell as we had to fight fires on several fronts. I wondered if we were going to have a last stand at VFK-IV. The plan, however, was not to waste ships against the superior numbers arrayed against us. Instead we gave up territory, announcing the abandonment of the Vale of the Silent region, occupied by Lawn and Bastion, with one constellation owned by Circle-of-Two. CO2 decided to leave the Imperium over this in order to save their territory, which would soon be the front line in the war, betraying us even as the fight was still going on in M-OEE8. Once the war was over their new friends turned on them and took their territory anyway. Who says there are no happy endings?
The M-OEE8 fight was still a big one and got CCP some press. That is one thing null sec is good for, bringing attention to the game.
Black Desert Online went live and much bitching about the cash shop ensued, so I couldn’t resist jumping on that bandwagon yet again. The cash shop is a necessary evil at this point.
Minecraft 1.9,the Combat Upgrade landed, giving us shields. I stopped wearing one of those ages ago, as you can’t read maps, among other things, if you have one on.
And, finally, things looked grim for WildStar, with China cancelled, layoffs, and dwindling revenue.
Ten Years Ago
Rift officially launched. And while I wasn’t playing, the social media options integrated into the game made it feel like I was there. And I don’t mean that in a good way.
Potshot and I made it to GDC thanks to Darren, where we were able to hobnob with the likes of Brian Green and Damion Schubert.
March of ten years ago found me spending time in EverQuest. It was on the Fippy Darkpaw progression server, which at that point was still set in the original EverQuest zones. Potshot and I were doing some classic things, like getting stuck in the Ocean of Tears and making alts. And running out of money.
I put up a poll asking people which of several items in my drafts folder (current population: 57) I should buckle down on and finish. I think almost everything on the list except the winner is still in my drafts folder.
And I came home one day to find the TV had died. Emergency CPR (read: banging on the damn thing) brought it back to life temporarily, but clearly a replacement was going to be needed. It was, after all, a few years older than EverQuest.
Fifteen Years Ago
World of Warcraft hit 6 million subscribers. Eventually it would double that number. And later it would sink below that number. WoW Classic seemed to get it back up to that number again, though all such numbers from Blizzard are pretty vague these days.
Twitter launched, but who in the hell wants a platform limited to just 140 characters? Or 280 characters now I guess.
Brent, going by the “Prognosticator” handle back then, launched the VirginWorlds podcast which began what was, for me, the golden age of MMO podcasting and eventually nudged me into blogging. Trust me to pick up the old trend when a new one starts. His site had fallen into disrepair over the years and, recently, disappeared altogether. Time to pull it from the side bar I think. I still have all the podcasts in my iTunes library, and you can peruse the site and descriptions over at the Internet Archive.
Twenty Years Ago
Nintendo released the GameBoy Advance, the handheld model between the GameBoy Color and the Nintendo DS. Games for the GBA were still available when I eventually got a Nintendo DS as it had a GBA cartridge slot to allow backward compatibility.
Thirty Years Ago
Neverwinter Nights, an online multiplayer Dungeons & Dragons themed game launched on AOL. In an age of text and MUDs, it was an online graphical multiplayer RPG and either one of the first, or a direct precursor to, modern MMORPGs, depending on how you want to define the “massive” part of the acronym.
Sierra Online launched The Sierra Network… their name having “online” in it before they had an actual online presence was a mistake in hindsight I suppose… which includes the title The Shadow of Yserbius as part of the package, which was also an online graphical multiplayer RPG (or a graphical MUD as they called it), which also gives it a claim to either being one of the first, or a direct precursor to, modern MMORPGs.
Once again this month saw Valheim take up most of my focus. The time split was as follows:
Valheim – 84.71%
EVE Online – 10.90%
WoW Classic – 4.30%
World of Warcraft – 0.10%
At this point Valheim is where I have spent about half of my gaming time so far this year. In the first half of the month I had more time on it that in my main browser. (Though, to be fair, I have to split between Firefox and Chrome for work related items.)
EVE Online
The war carries on. I’ve said that a few times, haven’t I? This past month was a bit lighter for me that January and February. My participation status shows over 100 ops in the last 90 days, but only about 15 of those were in the last 30 days. Blame Valheim a bit, but more it is the fact that no grand events have been happening really. I did do the Federation Grand Prix for the SKINs on an alt, but that was another story.
Pokemon Go
My wife and I both made it to level 41. It wasn’t that tough of a climb. We were helped along by the fact that we had accumulated some xp after hitting level 40 but before the new levels were announced. Not as much as some… I have people in my friends list who have as much as 60 million xp pre-done… but it boosted us along a bit. Now for level 42.
Level: 41 (15% of the way to 42 in xp, 2 of 4 tasks complete)
Pokedex status: 628 (+9) caught, 656 (+9) seen
Mega Evolutions obtained: 11 of 12
Pokemon I want: Need Eevees for the level 42 tasks
Current buddy: Frogadier
Valheim
As you can see from the ManicTime numbers, this is the title that dominated my gaming time again this month. Right now on our world we’re ready to slay Moder once we can get on together and then we will be moving towards the plains.
World of Warcraft
I did log into retail WoW, though only for Darkmoon Faire and a few pet battles. I did nothing out in the Shadowlands expansion. The events there have skipped far enough ahead of me that I likely won’t ever catch up. My renown remains meager and such.
WoW Classic
While the instance group has been mostly focused on Valheim, I did find a bit of time to run around with my paladin alt. I’d like to get him up to 60… or at least 58… before Burning Crusade Classic shows up.
Coming Up
Well, tomorrow is April Fools, so I am pretty sure some of you can guess what the post of the day will be about. It is the same thing every year.
In Valheim we have two bosses left to take on. We might actually accomplish that and get back to spending a bit of time in WoW Classic, though I suspect we’ll keep the Valheim world up and keep building and such. It has a Minecraft-like appeal in that.
I expect that we’ll start getting some news about a timeline for Burning Crusade Classic.
And in EVE Online CCP is ready to turn industry upside down by changing dramatically how all ships larger than a battlecruiser, plus all T2 and faction ships, are built. When even the devs are predicting chaos and things taking 4-6 months to settle down you know we’re in for a wild ride.
Back in December of last year Niantic unlocked the next ten levels in Pokemon Go. The game, having been capped at level 40 for over four years, was finally going to give people some new advancement goals.
The catch for the next ten level was that, in addition to the usual exp grind, players were going to have to complete some specific tasks along the way. For some, those who had been at level 40 for a long time and who had continued to accumulate exp, the tasks were the real gates to the next levels.
For people like my wife and I, who hit level 40 less than a month before the new levels were unlocked, the exp hill was going to be the main limiting factor. I finished the four tasks, which included catching 200 pokemon in a single day, long before I was even close to level. We both managed to tip over into level 41 this month, with the exp being the final gate as expected.
A level up at last
With the level you get some prizes.
Some gifts for your level
But then you are quickly back to looking at the exp curve to get to level 42.
The tasks to get to level 42 are not too tough. They are:
Evolve Eevee into each of its forms
Use items to evolve Pokémon 15 times
Make 3 excellent throws
Use 200 berries to help catch Pokémon
Only the Eevee evolution task is going to take some effort really. And part of that is because the basic evolves are random chance. (The naming trick only works on your first evolve, which I did years ago.) I had been saving up some Eevees for this, and then got seven Jolteons in a row. Time to catch some more Eevees.
In the end though, the exp will be the final gate for most levels. The level gradient looks like this:
levels 1-39 – 15 million exp
level 40 – 5 million exp
level 41 – 6 million exp
level 42 – 7.5 million exp
level 43 – 9 million exp
level 44 – 11 million exp
level 45 – 13 million exp
level 46 – 15 million exp
level 47 – 18 million exp
level 48 – 21 million exp
level 49 – 25 million exp
level 50 – 30 million exp
There are ways to speed up gaining exp. My biggest score was when I used a lucky egg, which doubles all exp earned, then had somebody transition to a best friend, finished my weekly pokestop spin and pokemon catch, and did two five star raids with our group. That was worth about 350K right there, though that was the stars aligning just right as the best friend was somebody in our raid group, so we were able to coordinate. Otherwise, a good day gets us a raid and the usual catch and stuff, so often rings up less that 20K exp.
As for the tasks, looking at the list posted over at Polygon, only the tasks for levels 49 and 50 seem like they are big enough to be a significant barrier to level. And, even then, the exp curve for those are so big that you will likely have plenty of time to work them out.
But we’re still just working on level 42, which for the most part means working on exp and catching every Eevee that shows up.
My daughter and I have been hanging on and waiting for a remake of Pokemon Diamond & Pearl for several years now, so we were both pretty hyped up when the announcement finally came.
There are a few reasons that we’re feeling some hype for this.
The first is, of course, that Pokemon Diamond & Pearl is where we started playing Pokemon games back in early 2008. It is the foundational experience for us with the series.
Then there is the fact that the Pokemon remakes tend to be pretty good. HeartGold & SoulSilver might be the titles I spend the most time with in the series… the one time I caught them all… and OmgaRuby & AlphaSapphire were great remakes with a ton of depth.
And, as I said, we’ve been waiting for this remake for a while now. There has been a pretty well established pattern of remakes over the years, and Diamond & Pearl now sit as the oldest titles in the series that have not had a remake. They are due.
We expected them to be the next title on the Nintendo 3DS hardware after Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon back in 2017. Then GameFreak announced that they were done with the 3DS hardware… just after I bought a brand new 2DS model… and it was off to the Switch platform, where they first had the Let’s Go, Pikachu! & Let’s Go, Eevee! titles in 2018, rather light fare compared to where the core RPG stood at the end of the 3DS era, before giving us a full blown entry in the series with Sword & Shield in 2019.
I now have a Switch Lite… my daughter and I both do… and we played through some of Sword & Shield. It was a solid entry in the series, but didn’t really grab us and neither of us finished it out.
But now, with Diamond & Pearl coming back, we’re ready to give it another go. The ship date is currently slated for “late” 2021, which I am hoping will put it before Thanksgiving, or at least before Christmas. Then my daughter will be home on break from college and can perhaps find some time to play with the old man. Watching the trailer, I am surprised at how much I remember from the old game.
Nintendo also announced Pokemon Legends: Arceus today as well. Due in 2022, it is a new style of Pokemon adventure set in Sinnoh like Diamond & Pearl, but in an earlier era. As Nintendo put it, first we get the re-make, then we get the pre-make. Details on that were somewhat scanty in comparison, but in its trailer it looks to be an open world style game, akin to the Legend of Zelda titles, which is not a bad thing.
This all comes as the Pokemon franchise is celebrating its 25th anniversary. That is covered, along with a more information about games and events, in the Pokemon Presents video from today.
So there is plenty to look forward to on the Pokemon front it seems.
I am a little behind on my usual end of year posts with this. Generally I have a wrap up and a looking forward post at some point in late December… but then I found a bunch of other things to write about. I was only reminded of it when Belghast posted his charts.
2020 banner by my daughter
There is a history here, as there is with so much on this blog. It started with something akin to goals, a list of games I wanted to play, often very specific games. Then it became games I was likely to play. Then it turned into something like a long term weather forecast with some easy calls (it will be warm in the summer) and some possibilities.
So, now that the year has gone by, what did I actually play? ManicTime has some numbers for me. I am only listing the top ten because after that the times drop down to mere minutes played.
WoW Classic – 33.33%
EVE Online – 32.69%
World of Warcraft – 14.02%
EverQuest II – 6.03%
Minecraft – 5.25%
EverQuest – 2.16%
RimWorld – 2.08%
Diablo II – 2.02%
Pokemon Sword – 1.24%
Minecraft Dungeons – 0.75%
At the top is a close race between WoW Classic and EVE Online, with a gap smaller than ten hours played total between them. I guess Azeroth wins over New Eden overall, since retail WoW is in third place. Everything else shakes out from there.
As has become the custom of the neighborhood, I have a chart.
2020 games timeline
At the top are WoW Classic and EVE Online, both of which I played throughout the year. I also put Pokemon Go on the chart. It isn’t tracked by ManicTime, being on my phone, but I played every day in 2020.
Technically, looking at my times, I also played retail WoW every month, but there were months where that did not represent a significant investment. I have made those months where I pretty much just did Darkmoon Faire and some pet battles as a narrow streak. And once the level squish came and then the Shadowlands expansion launched, I spent quite a bit of time there.
EverQuest II and Minecraft had their runs. The former was me finishing up the Blood of Luclin expansion to the extent I felt I needed to, and Minecraft was a bit of a pandemic diversion setup by Skonk. I played a bit of EverQuest after the anniversary gave us another heroic character boost, though I ended up mostly tinkering with the Overseer feature.
RimWorld had an update that I wanted to try out. That was good for a bit of a run, though like so many build and conquer games, it suffers from the mid-game malaise once you get your base setup well enough.
I had a great run through Diablo II to celebrate its 20 years. The game still lives up to its legend, though I would like it to run at a resolution higher than 800×600.
I received a Nintendo Switch Lite for my birthday with a copy of Pokemon Sword, which I played for a stretch. I just wasn’t that into it. For a Pokemon game to grab me I have to be in the right mood and have a real goal. I couldn’t quite get either this time around.
And then there was Minecraft Dungeons, which is a serviceable and solid but shallow ARPG whose main attraction is being set in the Minecraft IP. I played through the story, but it doesn’t have a lot of replay value save to boost up stats so you can face harder monsters that drop gear that let you boost up your stats further.
So that was 2020. What of 2021?
As with last year, there are some sure things this year, games I am actively playing right now so that has already been decided. They are:
WoW Classic
EVE Online
Retail WoW
And, given the news, we can add one slight variation to that list:
WoW The Burning Crusade Classic
After that, however, the future is a bit fuzzy, and part of the problem is hardware related.
As I wrote about last year, I have a 34″ 3440 x 1440 wide screen monitor now, and I love playing games on it full screen. But not every game I have plays nice with it. The three titles I am playing now all happen to work great with it, but others struggle and have issues or won’t run at all. I actually tried to play Grim Dawn, which was on my “should make time” list for 2020, but it was not having it at all. It would not even launch correctly with the new monitor hooked up.
And there is a further constraint, which is my video card. I currently have a EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB card and, given the price of college and my wife being somewhat under-employed for the last year, spending a few hundred bucks on a new one is way down the priority list right now. So whatever I play needs to work on the big screen with that video card. WoW Classic and retail WoW both manage very well, with a few settings dialed back a bit, and EVE Online works like a champ, all settings maxed out, save for fights where the ships on grid get past the 2,500 mark.
But most newer games require a lot more horsepower to drive all those pixels. There is no way I am getting something like Cyberpunk 2077 or Red Dead Redemption II or Black Desert Online or anything like that to run well.
Meanwhile, a lot of older stuff is a bit shaky. As I wrote back when I got the monitor, EverQuest, EverQuest II, and LOTRO all sort of work, but have some issues, while Minecraft gives me motion sickness on the wide screen unless I dial back the field of view so far that I might as well just play it on my phone.
First world problems, I know.
Another angle is strategy games. Things like RimWorld not only run fine, but the large screen improves the experience. Maybe it is time for a bit of Civilzation V again. (I’m, betting Civ VI has too much going on visually to work with my video card at that resolution. It is the way.) Maybe I’ll pick up World of Tanks again when I need something fresh.
Of course, the lack of desire for something fresh is part of the problem as well. I’ve been kind of okay playing the same stuff all year. We shall see how I feel in 2021.
As I mentioned in the month in review post, I managed to make it to level 40 in Pokemon Go at last. My wife got here too, though about a week behind me.
The big four oh
In support of the whole idea that Pokemon Go is an MMO, hitting the level cap had both that climactic and anti-climactic feel to it that reaching the level cap does in a game like WoW.
On the one hand, you’ve climbed the xp mountain. The goal has been achieved.
And, as I mention, the way the level curve in Pokemon Go is setup, the gap between level 39 and level 40 represents 25% of the total xp needed to go from 1 to 40. That last step is a big one, and since I hit 39 back in April I have noted not just my level in the month in review posts, but the percentage of the way I had made it towards that final goal.
There was a lot of anticipation running through me as to how long it would take to reach the summit, so when I arrived it was kind of a big deal. I got my moment, the big 40 on my phone screen, the pile of goodies that come with the level, and all of that.
But then there is the inevitable realization that once you’re at the top of the mountain, the climb is done. As often happens to me in MMOs, I get focused pretty hard on getting there as I get closer and closer… and then suddenly the last bit before level zips past and it happens so fast that you feel like you never had a chance to savor those last moments.
And then after all the time focused on one primary aspect of the game, you’re done with it and left feeling a bit empty as your goal is suddenly reached.
I took a screen shot of my basic stats just after I hit level 40.
Status as of level 40
It is interesting to note that you keep accumulating xp even after you hit level 40.
My wife was a bit irked to hit level 40 after me as the account on her phone is a month older than the one on mine, so she had been ahead of me in levels for most of the chase up to level 40. I caught up around level 36, then she passed me again, then I pulled out in front for the final stretch.
Part of the reason she is irk is that her stats on that page, for Pokemon caught and PokeStops visited, are more than 10K higher than mine on both counts. That is few million points of xp she should have over me.
But I did better with Pokefriends. I have 34 “best” friends in the game, and you earn xp for each of the four friend stages, the last two being worth 50K and 100K respectively. She had about half that many when she hit 40, so that gave me a couple million extra xp on my own. Plus, I managed to pop a lucky egg for a couple of best friend events, which doubles the xp.
Now that we’re both 40 and the xp race is done, the question is what to do now? After all this time, it is kind of our thing, something we do together.
In the grand tradition of the mainline Pokemon RPGs, there is always the quest to catch them all. There are still a bunch of Pokemon we’re missing.
And, more in the MMO tradition, there is raiding. One of my wife’s friends has been including us in a group that coordinates to do gym raids, something that is also helping us fill in the missing Pokemon.
We did talk about trying one of the other Niantic games, specifically Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. However, that didn’t seem to be taking off… or be much more than a re-skin of Pokemon Go with a Hogwarts motif… so we stuck with the our current game for now.
Pokemon Go has been upping its game this year too, with a lot of events. And there is talk about either raising the level cap or adding another form of progression.
For now though, we’re working with the game at the level cap. We can finally boost up our Pokemon to their max CP.
The Verge reported that at some point in the last week or so Nintendo updated their Japanese site to indicate that the remaining units in the DS lineup, the 3DL XL, 2DS, and 2DS XL are “out of production.”
If you go the US Nintendo site, mention of the DS line of handheld console has been completely scrubbed, save for the support area, where it now lives in the “Other Systems” category with the Wii, the Wii U, and older generations of the DS line.
So ends Nintendo’s dual screen handheld line. The Switch was not supposed to replace it, not according to Nintendo at least, and the initial Switch model was certainly bulky enough compared to the pocket sized DS line to support that argument. But then came the Switch Lite and the writing was on the wall.
Though, to my mind, the real death knell of the DS line was Game Freak moving core Pokemon RPG development to the Switch. In our family we played some other games on the DS, but it was primarily the Pokemon console, and those core titles were always best sellers on the platform.
The end was always coming some day, and I haven’t really played anything on my 3DS XL for ages, but it is still a bit of a sad note.
On the flip side, the DS line had a hell of a run.
Released in late 2004, when the PlayStation 2, original XBox, and GameCube were the current console generation, it persisted through to pre-orders for the PlayStation 5. The hardware went through a series of revisions, starting with the DS, then the DS Lite, then the DSi and DSi XL. Then came the 3D plan, with the 3DS and 3DS XL, the latter getting a couple of revisions during its time. Finally, in order to satisfy the budget end of the spectrum, there was the 2DS, unique in its form factor, and the final entry in the lineup, the 2DS XL.
That last entry, which was also the last model I owned, was basically the 3DS XL with some improvements and a the 3D option remove. It was, in its way, the pinnacle of the line, 3D ending up being more of a gimmick than a serious feature for most people.
But we had a number of the various models along the way.
Back in early 2008 we bought a pink DS Lite for our daughter to keep her entertained on a trip that included a six hour flight. Later that was joined by a cobalt blue DS Lite of my own, since Pokemon seemed like a lot of fun. My daughter and I played a lot of Pokemon together.
Pokemon Diamond and the DS Lite
The WiFi features of the early units were ahead of their time. It could be a bit finicky, but it was a deep feature. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl had its underground feature that allowed players to interact in the caves and visit each other’s bases. (And steal their flags!) There was online trading between players around the world. And I was extremely impressed with the WiFi integration with the Wii as demonstrated by games like Pokemon Battle Revolution and Pokemon Ranch.
And my little cobalt blue DS Lite was, and remains, a solidly built unit. It went on a lot of trips and I never had a problem with it. Battery life was excellent.
My daughter got a DSi at one point, then a DSi XL, which I thought was a great improvement. Age was creeping up on me by then and the little DS Lite screen was starting to be blurry to me.
Then the 3DS line came along. We skipped that initially, there being no real incentive to go to a little 3DS from the big DSi XL, but Nintendo eventually came out with the 3DS XL. My daughter wanted one for Christmas and, once she had one, I got myself one for my birthday a couple months later. We were back and playing Pokemon again.
And Pokemon was always the main game for us. I think the peak for my daughter and I, the point when were were the most into it, was during Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver. The game was good and the tropes of the core RPG series still felt fresh to us.
There was the Pokewalker, the pedometer which allowed you to unlock Pokemon by getting out and walking… or, you know, cheating. It communicated with the DS Lite via the IR port. Only one Pokewalker went through the wash.
Pokewalker on my Belt
There were many download events, the ones where you had to go out to Toys R Us or GameStop to collect. We event went to the regional championships just to see what was going on.
And, of course, Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver was the game where I caught them all for the first and only time. I got the National Pokedex first, which qualifies you for the achievement in the game. But that was only 485 Pokemon, because they don’t make you get the rare, event Pokemon. But I managed to hunt them down, getting the final one by playing Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs to get an egg that could be transferred into Pokemon SoulSilver , which would then hatch a Mamphy, with could be bred with a Ditto to get an egg that would hatch a Phione, the last Pokemon I needed. I had 493 Pokemon registered, back when that was all there was.
Back when 493 was all there was
I think we might have burned ourselves out on Pokemon with that run. We played Pokemon Black & White, but were never that into it, as we skipped Pokemon Black 2 & White 2 when they came out, though I went back and played White 2 later. It was a decent entry, and actually bucked a few of the tropes of the series.
Then there was the dead time, when the new Pokemon titles were on the 3DS, but we didn’t go there until the XL models came out. Those saw a return to Pokemon for us and a modest revival of our passion for the games.
We played through Pokemon X & Y, Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, and Pokemon Sun & Moon, though we stumbled a bit with Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon. We bought it, but neither of us finished it. We were again in the “too samey” phase again. But my daughter did devote a lot of time to Animal Crossing: New Leaf after Pokemon faded.
And that was it. Literally the day after my wife bought me the 2DS XL for Christmas, Game Freak announced that there would be no more Pokemon games on the DS platform. The Switch was the future.
The 3DS hung around, and even saw a bit of a sales spike at one point after that, but without Pokemon there to anchor the platform, it seemed like time was drawing down on it, which brings us to this past week.
The units are still here. I can still play Pokemon if I want. But the support services have been fading since the Switch came out. None of the DS series Pokemon games can use their global trade center or other connectivity that made the games so vibrant. That has all been turned off. And soon enough the store and all the other bits that Nintendo has to maintain will go away. Like the Wii before it, the DS series will become isolated, stand alone game consoles.
Still, as I said, a hell of a run. Almost 16 years have gone by since the first units shipped, and you can still play games made for the very first DS on the final 2DS XL units. And it was a platform for some crazy ideas. Let’s just start with the whole two screens idea, one being a touch screen. Then there were the IR ports and the cameras and then 3D support, which included freaking 3D camera capabilities along with AR support along with all the things Nintendo did with WiFi along the way.
Seriously, they got Netflix to make an app to stream their video service on the 3DS series. I tried it. It was crap quality, but you could watch stuff.
So it goes.
If I want to play Pokemon today I have a Switch Lite. It is a nice little unit. The screen quality is very good. But it won’t replace the DS series in my heart. There is too much of my life tied up in that.
