Twitch Plays Pokemon Weekly Update

[VanQ]

As entertaining as the new stream is, it just... doesn't feel the same. At max I've only seen about 16k people running it, a far cry from the MINIMUM 40k Pokemon red had. Probably why they haven't had so many releases and made such massive progress in such a short time, really.

I was watching it earlier this week and it had around 47k people playing it. It's still a lot of fun to watch on the second monitor as I grind away on an alt in WoW. I even occasionally input a command or three when it's pissing me off.

Well, just flicked over to it now (Monday Night) and it's got 8.5k people playing it (same time during Red was about 40-50k). It's been bleeding watchers fairly rapidly since it started, since it's just... not Twitchplayspokemon: Red anymore. The magic isn't there anymore. The memes were made, Anarchy happened and plans were cooked up on the fly. Now it just feels so... ordered and forced. Still fun to watch, but not at the same level as Red did.

Though maybe if we get to fighting Red and he's got Bird Jesus with him, maybe then the 100k will return.

If I remember correctly, Red's team in Crystal is Pikachu, Charizard, Blastoise, Venusaur, Snorlax and Espeon. I'm afraid Bird Jesus is nowhere to be seen at this point in time.

[sub]Probably got released during anarchy mode.[/sub]

 

[Me55enger]

If I recall correctly, the Shuckle is actually referred to as "Shuck Norris."

 

[Strazdas]

Hey, thanks for the advice. I've removed the twitch stream from the post, as multiple users have complained about it.

Thank you. Hopefully the change sticks to all future News featuring twitch or you find a way to embed Twitch that doesnt autoplay and doesnt make your ram scream.

 

[Antitonic]

There are the meta stories still being produced. Whereas Red's story was more about a cult of sorts, Crystal's seems to be more in line with a paramilitary group. A group of two (so far) to be sure, but still.

If I remember correctly, Red's team in Crystal is Pikachu, Charizard, Blastoise, Venusaur, Snorlax and Espeon. I'm afraid Bird Jesus is nowhere to be seen at this point in time.

[sub]Probably got released during anarchy mode.[/sub]

That's assuming, of course, that Red's team wasn't altered. I mean, I'm pretty sure the starters weren't catchable in the wild in the version Crystal I played, and yet AJ's Pokedex suggests otherwise...

 

[Multi-Hobbyist]

A master ball.... on a Goldeen. Bloody hell that's funny. That's all I needed to know about this time's run around. Stay classy, you trolls and griefers! You'll always have my support.

 

[PrimePowerOn]

Dear Escapist Staff: Thank you.

Thank you thank you thank you.

You've hit the nail right on the head for *exactly* the amount of information I want to know about TPP. I'll look forward to the next weekly update!

 

[Gizen]

As entertaining as the new stream is, it just... doesn't feel the same. At max I've only seen about 16k people running it, a far cry from the MINIMUM 40k Pokemon red had. Probably why they haven't had so many releases and made such massive progress in such a short time, really.

In all fairness, 16k is still a huge number. Last I checked it was still the 3rd most popular stream on twitch, with the only two above it being a currently running Dota 2 and LoL tournament respectively.

And the massive progress bit actually stems from three things.

1. Democracy mode was available right from the start, whereas in gen 1 the streamer didn't implement it until halfway through.

2. Gen 2 was just straight up easier than Gen 1 was. Just compare the Elite Four/Champion. In Red, their pokemon were in the level 50-60s range, while in Crystal they're going to be low-high 40s. This is intended to be made up for by the fact that Gen 2 was twice as long as Gen 1. Where Red's only post-game was the Unknown Dungeon and Mewtwo, in Crystal after beating the game there's a whole 'nother 8 badges to get, plus the battle against Red in Mt. Silver (and unlike with Red version, they ARE going to be doing the post-game this time).

Lastly, 3. They didn't accidentally release the starter this time (though they've come close a few times), which combined with the aforementioned easier/lower levelled trainers, led to it getting overlevelled much more quickly than it would've in the first game. They also used democracy mode to remove it's useless attacks and give it a pure offensive moveset. Now that they've progressed quite a bit through the game, their general lack of competence and random button mashing is finally starting to fail and they're whiteing out more often, but for a while the starter was pretty much just invincible.

 

[SecondPrize]

, and, once again, a Drowzee (poor Drowzee).

I didn't watch regularly towards the end but I don't believe our Drowzee was ever released in Red, merely boxed. It hasn't been nearly as fun this time around, whether the novelty has worn off or the control system sucked this time I've only been able to check in for short periods, and get bored quickly whereas I happily spent hours watching Red bang up against some obstacle without getting bored.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

This one seems to have been on democracy mode the whole time, making it even more boring.

 

[Raggedstar]

Well, it took about 3-4 weeks to complete Red, so yeah, having only used a week so far, we've still got plenty of time to run through Kanto again.

Also, Scary Face isn't the move that looks like lasers, that would be Leer.

I was about to comment on that, but I checked and leer and scary face had almost the exact same animation in Gen 2. Only difference was that scary face's flashed.

 

[RJ 17]

I'm just amazed that they actually managed to get the name "Shuckie" entered in...I'd have thought that every name would just be a random assortment of letters.

 

[Bindal]

I'm just amazed that they actually managed to get the name "Shuckie" entered in...I'd have thought that every name would just be a random assortment of letters.

They didn't, it's not theirs.
Same why the Farfetch'd in Red was called DUX - it had that name from the beginning.
And not all their pokemon are actually named. For example, Lazorgator didn't get renamed until yesterday. Until then, it used the default name. Still, it was called Lazorgator (thanks to Leer)

 

[xynnia]

The amount of memes from Red was insane, Crystal only has had a few, mostly focusing on Totadile and his almighty lazer eyes.

I don't know, to me there seem to be a lot of memes from Crystal, or at least a lot of fanart and fan-canon. Maybe that's not the same, but I've been really impressed with the depth and creativity of a lot of the fan contributions. Without the fifty different versions of "HAIL LORD HELIX!" we've actually got room for some well-thought-out stories. And I love the way that the reputations of the Pokémon from Red are brought into play. If you want some examples, here are some of my favourite [http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/715/890/2e6.jpg] fan [http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/715/884/a89.jpg] comics [http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/717/913/6c7.jpg].

Also, I might be the only person in this thread who was really glad to see a weekly update starting up. I want to keep on top of TPP, but I don't have the time to keep checking in with the stream itself to try and work out what's happened or to trawl through updates on Twitter. This is a neat solution to that issue, and I think there is an audience for it.