Emerald AuroraTicket illegal??

[Zowayix]

As I'm sure many people here know, there are four ticket items in Gen III (Eon Ticket, MysticTicket, AuroraTicket, and Old Sea Map) that allow the player to visit normally inaccessible islands to get particular event-exclusive Pokemon. Of these, the Old Sea Map (and by extension, any Shiny Mew) is exclusive to Japan.

However, something that I've always been unclear on is whether or not the AuroraTicket was ever distributed to Emerald. If it was not, then that makes any instance of Birth Island Deoxys of Emerald origin illegal, and by extension all of the Emerald RNG'd Deoxys encounters.

After searching for answers for literally years, I've become more and more convinced that the AuroraTicket was never distributed to Emerald, anywhere in the world.

Here's what I know so far concerning all of the ticket events:

Eon Ticket:
- In Japan and the USA, the Eon Ticket was distributed via direct download or e-Card to R/S.
- Europe later had an Eon Ticket direct download event, also only to R/S.
- The only way to get an Eon Ticket in Emerald outside of Japan is to mix records with R/S.
- I do not know when or if an Eon Ticket was directly distributed to Emerald in Japan, but this doesn't concern Pokemon legality in any way.

Old Sea Map:
- Only ever distributed to Japan, via direct download to Emerald.

MysticTicket:
- In both Japan and the USA, this was only distributed after Emerald came out, and was available to all of FR/LG/E.
- The MysticTicket was never obtainable in Europe.
- In the USA, the MysticTicket was distributed at PRA 2005 for FR/LG/E. The AuroraTicket was not distributed during this event.

AuroraTicket:
- In both Japan and the USA, the AuroraTicket was distributed at movie screenings of Destiny Deoxys. Emerald was not out then, only FR/LG.
- In the USA, the AuroraTicket was distributed at Pokemon Rocks America 2004. Emerald was not out then, only FR/LG.

It was stated for a long time that in the UK at least, you could send your cartridge in to Nintendo and they would give you all the tickets (minus the Old Sea Map) available on that cart. However, I believe this is an unfortunately false rumor for the following reasons:
- It would mean that Emerald could receive the AuroraTicket only in Europe, and not Japan or the USA. I have never found evidence of multiple distributions of the AuroraTicket in any location, and the first distribution in all three areas occured before Emerald was out.
- It would mean that a special machine would have existed that would send the Eon Ticket directly to Emerald, whereas such a machine did not exist in the USA.
- Even with all available distribution machines right next to you, any Gen III cart can only hold one Wonder Card, so receiving multiple tickets on a Gen III cart is quite a convoluted process: the player must receive one ticket, reset the game, pick it up from the man on the second floor of the Pokemon Center, reset the game again, trash the Wonder Card, and reset the game a third time before being able to pick up a second ticket. I doubt Nintendo would have done this for every cartridge they received in the mail, especially for Emerald where there are three tickets.

Any thoughts?

[RBG*]

I believe you could Mystery Gift the ticket between Gen III Games.

[Zowayix]

No, only the Eon Ticket can be transferred, and only by mixing records between an R/S game that originally received it, and another R/S/E game that hasn't received it.

And before anyone asks, only the Eon Ticket was ever made into an e-card. No e-cards exist, even in Japan, for the other three tickets; those were all wireless distributions.

[rocky505]

Yes they were. They gave away all the tickets at Pokemon rocks America in 03, 04 and 05.

[Zowayix]

I'm aware that the tickets were distributed at PRA in 2003-2005. The problem is that the AuroraTicket was never distributed to Emerald during PRA:

PRA 2003:
Eon Ticket distributed through link cable to R/S. No other tickets were distributed as FR/LG/E weren't out yet.

PRA 2004:
AuroraTicket distributed through wireless to FR/LG. Emerald was not out yet. Eon Ticket and MysticTicket were not distributed.

PRA 2005:
MysticTicket distributed through wireless to FR/LG/E. Eon Ticket and AuroraTicket were not distributed.

Note that Emerald never had a chance to get the AuroraTicket.

[TM13IceBeam]

Bulbapedia states this:

AuroraTicket e-card from Nintendo events to access Birth Island

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wi...t_Pok%C3%A9mon

Also found this on Serebii:
http://www.serebii.net/events/auroraticket.shtml
Notably, the first event takes place on the very day Emerald comes out in the USA.
:/

[Zowayix]

I'm almost positive those are inaccurate, there were absolutely no e-cards for any tickets except the Eon Ticket anywhere in the world. I've looked through extensive databases of Japansese e-reader cards, and only the Eon Ticket appears.

I find it extremely unlikely that an event would occur distributing the AuroraTicket to Emerald that began the day it was released (and in one case, also ended the day it was released).

I cannot find any solid evidence supporting an AuroraTicket distribution for Emerald anywhere in the world, and plenty of evidence (pictures, news stories, Pokemon.com archives and screenshots, old forum archives, even videos in a few cases) supporting how the other tickets were distributed for other games.

[Tomaius]

It really annoys me when Ninty don't activate events or make it permanent activation once you have the ticket. Theres still an Arceus event knocking around in Diamond and Pearl that no one can access.

[Perfect Cell]

Originally Posted by Fat Tomaius

It really annoys me when Ninty don't activate events or make it permanent activation once you have the ticket. Theres still an Arceus event knocking around in Diamond and Pearl that no one can access.

Or the Old Sea Map in Emerald for the English players.

Honestly, I wish nintendo would have an event where all the old games could get the event items(GS BALL PLEASE) again.

[thelaytonmobile]

I seem to remember someone having Emerald at my download. I can't remember, but I think I was confused, since it was a few more days til release so I didn't know how he had it. But the tour definitely had more locations afterwards, so I think Emerald would be out at some point. I actually think the event was to celebrate the release of Emerald.
This was in England btw. If there's any way to check when I downloaded the event I could do that, but I can't see any way to since my Deoxys is in Diamond now.

Anyway, I believe that Emerald was released during the Deoxys event in England.

[Zowayix]

That is correct, Emerald was indeed released in Europe in the middle of the Deoxys event in the UK.

However, would an Emerald cart be able to download the AuroraTicket from a machine that was at least initially designed to distribute only to FR/LG?

[TM13IceBeam]

Considering that there's data in Emerald for the Aurora Ticket anyway, I don't see why not.

[Zowayix]

That's not exactly proof though, there are plenty of counterexamples where a distribution should theoretically be compatible but is not:

- D/P could not receive the Member Card or Oak's Letter from Wi-Fi where Platinum could.
- Various event distributions to B/W could only be received by one or the other, not both.
- In the US, Custap Berry Regigigas could not be received by early release copies of Platinum, only D/P (the event ended March 21 and Platinum was released March 22, but some copies of Platinum were out by March 21 while the event was still ongoing). This might be the closest match to the Emerald AuroraTicket instance.

This proves that Nintendo is able to restrict distributions to particular games even if other games are out and they would theoretically be compatible.

I'm very concerned about this because it causes a bunch of legality issues even on this site, for example, flawless Deoxys RNG'd from Emerald with Gen III only moves becomes illegal, just as non-Japanese Shiny Mew are illegal.

[breh]

All gen 3 moves suck to begin with (or exist in tm/tutor form); Mega Kick Deoxys may seem tantalizing, but you have to resist the urge to use it!

Regardless, iirc, a R/S cart with a dead battery is able to be RNGed juuuust like Emerald can. I don't think this raises legality issues.

[Zowayix]

R/S doesn't have Birth Island... >_>

And concerning legality, it would still make any English Deoxys from origin location "Hoenn" (after Pal Parking) without the OT "SPACE C" or "DOEL" illegal, many of which exist on the Wi-Fi forum.

[thelaytonmobile]

I couldn't remember whether the guy actually dowloaded the ticket with Emerald or not, so I did some research:
This thread has some examples of Emerald being used.
Of course, it is all just their posts - but there are at least two (I didn't read every single page) who definitely used Emerald to download, and many others who mentioned they were bringing Emerald, and made no mention of not being able to download. Furthermore, there were some kind of envelopes given out that you could use to send off your game and get the event.

So it seems like it is indeed legal. And one of the Emeralds was imported too, so US carts can get the event too.

[Zowayix]

So after literally reading all 58 pages of that thread, it looks like Nintendo did not design the machines to be able to distribute to Emerald, yet they were able to distribute to Emerald because at least three people posted that they received the AuroraTicket during that event. I don't see much reason for people to be posting false info in a thread like that.

And if it's right, the UK got an event that the US never got.

However, all English copies of Emerald (US, UK, Australia) are absolutely identical, making an Emerald AuroraTicket legal on all Japanese and English Emerald carts.