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Pokemon Platinum - The definitive thread.
- Thread starter Masamune
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Lol, why do people change their posts, whenever the are proven wrong?
Hey, I just thought of something regarding battle compatibility with Diamond/Pearl when taking Platinum alternate forms into account.
Would D/P really be able to fight the new forms? People commonly cite the Deoxys case in ADV, but there is a huge difference this time around. In ADV, there was only one Deoxys "databank" amongst the 5 games, only the databank had different base stats depending on the game being played.
In Platinum, we have both Origin AND Another Giratina programmed into the game, which means there are two separate Giratina databanks. It should call on each separately at different times. But Diamond/Pearl only has one Giratina databank to call from, so wouldn't that prevent it from fighting an Origin Giratina since the Origin databank doesn't exist in there?
Also in the Yahoo video with Origin Giratina vs Dialga, it was noted a few pages back that its memo implies that it was caught in a different cartridge than the one viewing it (that "apparently met" message), and that it's likely it is from Diamond (level 47 at Spear Pillar). This combined with the trainer sprite using it being a Platinum one probably means that the Dialga was traded into Platinum for the video. Why would they do that if they could just battle a Diamond version in the vid?
I believe there's a strong case for the exclusion of alternate forms when fighting a Diamond/Pearl cartridge now. Or does anyone think it would be easy to get around this problem?
Would D/P really be able to fight the new forms? People commonly cite the Deoxys case in ADV, but there is a huge difference this time around. In ADV, there was only one Deoxys "databank" amongst the 5 games, only the databank had different base stats depending on the game being played.
In Platinum, we have both Origin AND Another Giratina programmed into the game, which means there are two separate Giratina databanks. It should call on each separately at different times. But Diamond/Pearl only has one Giratina databank to call from, so wouldn't that prevent it from fighting an Origin Giratina since the Origin databank doesn't exist in there?
Also in the Yahoo video with Origin Giratina vs Dialga, it was noted a few pages back that its memo implies that it was caught in a different cartridge than the one viewing it (that "apparently met" message), and that it's likely it is from Diamond (level 47 at Spear Pillar). This combined with the trainer sprite using it being a Platinum one probably means that the Dialga was traded into Platinum for the video. Why would they do that if they could just battle a Diamond version in the vid?
I believe there's a strong case for the exclusion of alternate forms when fighting a Diamond/Pearl cartridge now. Or does anyone think it would be easy to get around this problem?
To fix their mistakes. Thats why its called an edit.
D/P show's the sprite it "knows" and the calculations are done with the numbers(stats) Platinum sends, not much of a problem I think.
But how will D/P know that Platinum is sending out a Giratina at all if Platinum is showing something belonging to a databank nonexistent in D/P? Like I said, Origin Giratina's databank will come after stuff like Egg, Manaphy Egg, Ground Wormadam, Steel Wormadam, etc. that Diamond/Pearl have after even Arceus' databank... Origin and Another Giratina's databanks are not the same thing, while in ADV Attack Deoxys and Defense Deoxys indeed had the same databank number in both games...
Does anyone know what I mean?
Does anyone know what I mean?
Good point, didn't get what you meant from your other post.
If these forms will be in other slots(is this confirmed?) than the only possible ways I can see this working are the following:
- Patch for DP
- Perhaps the Platinum sending Pokémon information it could alter it to make a DP Giratina appear. The viability depends on how much data has to be send and depends on how the games recognize Pokémon in battles.
If Platinum would only have to send a slotnumber to DP than perhaps that could be altered by Platinum before it is send.
I'm sure somehow its possible otherwise the game developers would have some angry customers.
That is a fairly good point. I came to the conclusion that the alternate forms will have to be handled differently by using a more player-oriented approach:
Contrary to popular belief, Generation III did allow for Deoxys' true identity to be logically deduced. Since Ruby and Sapphire only supported link battles, players could simply observe the opposing player's cartridge and infer Deoxys' form; the other player could of course do the same, or alternatively, pay attention to the trainer sprite. For wireless battles between FireRed, LeafGreen and Emerald, Emerald players had the luxury of being able to distinguish (based on trainer sprites) between Ruby/Sapphire, FireRed/LeafGreen and other Emerald players (but not between Ruby and Sapphire or between FireRed and LeafGreen). A FireRed player facing a Normal Forme Deoxys used by Red/Leaf could gather that the opposing player was using a LeafGreen cartridge, and vice-versa. Finally, a FireRed/LeafGreen player facing Brendan/May in wireless mode could know without a doubt that the challenger was using an Emerald cartridge, despite the fact that they appeared in their Ruby/Sapphire clothes.
In conclusion, with the aid of visual details and straightforward logic, only Emerald players facing FireRed/LeafGreen players were put in a disadvantage as a result of Deoxys' camouflage ability. In contrast, Diamond/Pearl players in either wireless or Wi-Fi mode will presumably not have a method of discerning between Land Forme and Sky Forme. Luckily, Giratina should be a different story due to the fact that Another Forme's Pressure activates a warning message, whereas Origin Forme's Levitate does not.
Of course, the point that you made also shows that displaying the Diamond/Pearl sprites for both Another Forme and Sky Forme is not as elementary as it was in Deoxys' case. In Generation IV, alternate forms are for all intents and purposes new Pokémon. Still, it is a stretch at this point to think that Platinum will not be battle-compatible with Diamond and Pearl. If nothing else, Platinum could rather easily have Origin Forme and Sky Forme shift to their previous forms when battling a Diamond/Pearl player; they would truly be Another Forme and Land Forme, respectively, rather than just appearing that way to the Diamond/Pearl player.
But having said that, the more important fact that should be taken into consideration is that Platinum will have new index numbers for Origin Forme, Sky Forme and the five silhouettes. Diamond and Pearl are the first games where there are practically no "pseudo-Pokémon": there are the 493 normal Pokémon, Deoxys' additional three forms, Wormadam's additional two forms, the Pokémon Egg and the Manaphy Egg. The Bad Egg is merely a glitched Pokémon Egg and has no data of its own. Ironically enough, Platinum will be the first game to add new Pokémon to an existing generation, in the sense that Origin/Sky Forme and Another/Land Forme will not overlap.
Game Freak could opt to take the easy way out and render Another Forme and Sky Forme unusable in battles against Diamond/Pearl players. The form-shifting mechanism is, after all, already at their disposal. One might think that the five silhouettes would be yet another bunch of alternate forms that could be treated in the same fashion. Personally, I find that that would not have an advantage over adding brand new Pokémon. They have already taken the step of creating new index numbers that do not exist in Diamond and Pearl, and if the new forms/Pokémon cannot be used in battles against Diamond/Pearl players, does it matter whether or not they can shift to different Pokémon? The moves would stay the same, but the stats and ability would not. Even if the new forms were somehow made usable in Platinum-Diamond/Pearl battles, that would only mean that so could new Pokémon. Unlike in the previous generation, new Pokémon and new forms are really one and the same.
There's also the possibility that this generation, the developers foresaw Platinum and provided a way in the programming of DP to handle new data.
In the previous gen, Deoxys was something "new and exciting." This time around, the devs may have planned for such an event and prepared ahead of time.
In the previous gen, Deoxys was something "new and exciting." This time around, the devs may have planned for such an event and prepared ahead of time.
I take it that you mean handling new data on a temporary basis, that is, for the duration of a single battle. Otherwise, it definitely does not seem to even be possible for Origin Forme, Sky Forme and the silhouettes to have their data added to Diamond and Pearl; there are no placeholder index numbers that could serve that purpose.SeanH said:
So it really boils down to the question of whether or not the programming of Diamond and Pearl allows for Pokémon with unrecognized index numbers to be faced in battle. It would definitely require a maneuver of some sort. I have good reason to believe that that is not going to happen:
There is going to be an official tournament this autumn in Japan for Platinum players. Surprisingly enough, Diamond/Pearl players are not eligible. See this page for confirmation; Diamond and Pearl are listed along with the GBA games as being ineligible. Never before has a Pokémon game not been accepted to an official tournament held in its generation. One might think that the reason for the above is that there is going to be some special mode in Platinum. However, that is not the case: The same Double Cup ruleset from Diamond and Pearl will be used.
The question that begs to be asked is why Diamond/Pearl games are ineligible. It is most likely that the Platinum ruleset is too different from its Diamond/Pearl counterpart, hence the removal of compatibility. The page makes mention of rules that are not part of Diamond and Pearl's ruleset, of which the most prominent one concerns the legality of moves. Since Diamond and Pearl's built-in ruleset was not that sophisticated, the 2007 Japanese tournament and this year's American tournament required that the Pokémon Company staff scrutinize the competitors' cartridges by use of a machine. I would wager that the Pokémon Company encouraged Game Freak to expand the built-in ruleset for Platinum; it would save a lot of work and waiting time in the tournament, as well as make it fairer for the competitors.
If my assumption is correct, it will not necessarily mean that battles between Platinum and Diamond/Pearl will be impossible. Battles can be played without restrictions, but obviously not in official tournaments. It will also not directly have to do with Origin Forme or Sky Forme, because they will almost certainly be banned from the tournament. It will just demonstrate that Game Freak and the Pokémon Company are not afraid to isolate Platinum from its predecessors wherever that isolation is necessary. It follows from this that it is not a leap for Origin Forme, Sky Forme and the silhouettes to be unusable in battles against Diamond/Pearl players.
That is not all: The list of ineligible Pokémon will only be published when Platinum is released, even though the rest of the rules are all available now. The page makes special note of that. This implies that the list of unusable Pokémon in Double Cup (and the rest of the Generation IV cups, for that matter) has been tweaked from Diamond and Pearl. The five silhouettes immediately come to mind. If nothing more, we can deduce that the silhouettes are event Pokémon not permitted in the Battle Frontier and official tournaments. Otherwise, the same ban list from Diamond and Pearl would apply to Platinum and there would be no reason to keep that a secret. Furthermore, we already know that they are not going to be obtainable via normal gameplay.
I don't know about everyone else, but I would find it rather ridiculous for Rotom's alternate forms, which by definition would be Pokémon with a base stat total of 440 and without ties to legendary Pokémon (unlike Phione), to be on par with the event Pokémon. Therefore, I suspect that the silhouettes are brand new Pokémon.
This database thing is misleading. D/P won't need patches and the new forms won't make the games incompatible. Think of it like this. A pokemon can be hacked to all hell(wonder guard, 999 in all stats, completely inappropriate moves, etc.) but you can still battle people with that pokemon. That hacked pokemon isn't in D/P's database, but the game still knows what it is. This is the same deal. These pokemon have different stats, abilities and moves. But the game doesn't need to have a database for each form.
The hacked Pokémon is in Diamond and Pearl's data: It is a glitch, as it were, of the original Pokémon. When you use a hacked Pokémon against another player, that player's game recognizes the Pokémon's index number; the calculations based on the hacked stats and ability are done in your game and are then applied to the other game.
The new forms will definitely have separate data; not only is that the way it is done in Diamond and Pearl for Deoxys and Wormadam, but it is the only way to accommodate more than one form of the same Pokémon in the same game.
I think that you meant to say that Platinum could have Origin Forme and Sky Forme shift to their previous forms when a player enters a battle with a Diamond/Pearl player. That kind of form-shifting would be different from the regular method in that the Pokémon would retain their stats, abilities and sprites, even though their index numbers would be those of Another Forme and Land Forme (so as to allow Diamond and Pearl to recognize the Pokémon). At the end of the battle, the forms would shift back.
There are two problems that come to mind:
1) While we know that Pokémon can be made to have irregular stats and abilities, can their sprites really be altered? (To my knowledge, hacking has never made that possible in any game.)
2) It would would only serve to let Platinum players use Sky Forme against their Diamond/Pearl comrades, who are unable to distinguish between Land Forme and Sky Forme.
In other words, even if it were possible, it would not really be worth it. I have explained before how the GBA games made it easy to identify Deoxys' form; that would not hold true for the DS games in regard to Shaymin. If anything, Game Freak should opt to make it possible for Platinum to transmit temporary data to Diamond and Pearl that would allow the games to properly handle new forms or Pokémon. But the fact that the Pokémon Company has no problem holding a Platinum-exclusive tournament tells me that it is not an issue for them to exclude Diamond and Pearl whenever it is too cumbersome to allow compatibility.
I don't know about D/P, but I know plenty of ADV games had been hacked to have different sprites. Basically from what I've heard this is what happens. (Pokemon Shiny Gold, a hack of Fire Red will be used as an example)
They grab lets say rattata. They change its sprite, maybe its base stats (I don't if the person who hacked it would do it), and its movepool. Since hackers can't really "hack" a new pokemon into the game they need to alter an already existing pokemon. So if shiny gold, had a sentret, who is to say it isn't a rattata with different stats?
EDIT: Some other games I know ruby has been hacked to Pokemon Ruby destiny, LG into LG Omega, and some either r/s/e into Pokemon Dragon.
I wasn't referring to ROM hacks, but rather to hacking done on the cartridge through cheating devices.
Limited backwards compatibility may be a selling point for Platinum. The more advantages Platinum has over Diamond and Pearl the more pressure players will feel to upgrade. The old paradigm in which one version is missing Pokémon that you can find in the other version isn't as compelling when the Internet places all species within easy reach. What better way to up the ante than to make a version with forms that are not only native to the new cartridge but also completely unable to interact with the old games?
It'll be interesting to see what sort of implementation Game Freak has settled upon.
It'll be interesting to see what sort of implementation Game Freak has settled upon.
Sorry, I didn't know that was the situation. Though couldn't the rom just be put in flash cart and count as what you said?
I don't think it would a positive thing, but more of a negative thing. D/P Players would be mad that they would create a similar game and making it obsolete. Its like buying a candy bar, and seeing the same candy bar in an hour at half the price.
A version with new forms and new Pokémon would be better. I really cannot see what under these circumstances would hold Game Freak back from not tying the five silhouettes to existing Pokémon. Insisting on having five more forms wouldn't accomplish anything other than the ability to trade those Pokémon to Diamond and Pearl in their previous form (Rotom, for the sake of discussion), but who would want to do that? The silhouettes represent event Pokémon; Rotom is not an event Pokémon.SwinubToupée said:
I am not really interested in altering the sprites for my own benefit. I was wondering if Game Freak could program Platinum to make Origin Forme and Sky Forme shift to their old forms, but only in the very technical sense, while retaining their stats, abilities and sprites. Hacking can achieve the former two objectives, but to my knowledge, the latter one is off-limits.jujuomi said:
It is not terribly important either way, seeing as it would not solve the more major problem of the lack of distinction between Land Forme and Sky Forme. It is most likely not going to be done, leaving the possibility of temporary data transmission as the only arguably feasible way for Diamond/Pearl players to face Origin Forme, Sky Forme and the five silhouettes. Leaving out compatibility in that specific regard seems more feasible.
According to the Japanese text accompanying the silhouettes, they are never referred to as "New Pokemon" but rather as "Mysterious Pokemon" this difference is notable enough to cause some doubt that the all silhouettes are brand new. The text also seems to imply that the five silhouettes may all be a single Pokemon. Which could very well mean we are dealing with something similar to Deoxys, (which had silhouettes of it's forms before FireRed, LeafGreen, and then Emeralds releases)
There is also the fact that items are needed to obtain said silhouettes. If we were talking about a new legendary, they would surely hold out on giving players access to the event, to do a tie-in for Movie 12 along with the likely Arcues tie-in. The fact that players are getting access to these items immediately after Platinum's release is extremely fishy.
Taking these facts into account, I surmise that it is 99% likely we are not dealing with a legendary, or in-fact anything on that level.
As far as Platinum's compatibility with Diamond and Pearl, I think there is no reason for there not to be compatibility. As the ADV games proved, the games are built with enough leeway so that introducing new alternate forms is never enough to kill compatibility. Now, the sprites for Sky Shaymin, and Origin Giratina will most probably show up as their regular forms. And since stats, movesets, abilities, and typing, are easily malleable within the pre-defined boundries in data structures of D/P, I expect that we will all have to think twice before EQing every Giratina we see, unless we are playing Platinum ourselves.
Only Speed Forme had been foreshadowed before it was actually revealed. Even then, the silhouette was referred as a hidden new form of Deoxys', rather than something vague along the lines of "Mystery Pokémon" (which can quite easily be in reference to new Pokémon).
More recently, Origin Forme and Sky Forme were revealed without having been foreshadowed (Sky Forme's existence had been alluded by by unofficial sources, but those do not count).
Why? If the silhouettes were new Pokémon that were not legendary, but simply fell under the event category, their items could be distributed at any given time.
What strikes me as fishy is the possibility of alternate forms of a mediocre Pokémon being hyped and made out to be more important than the legendary Origin Forme and Sky Forme. They would be the only alternate forms rarer than their original form. There is not much sense to be had in that. On the other hand, new Pokémon would be genuinely surprising and would generate that level of interest from players.
The facts speak for themselves: The DS versions are programmed differently compared to the GBA ones. What you call "leeway" is simply the fact that each of the GBA versions only accommodated one Deoxys form, which in turn allowed the data to be compatible between all five versions. Reaverz and I have already discussed why that is not possible in the DS games.
Have you ever fought a guy who haxxored with pokesav? I'd imagine it would be like that. Giratina's sprite, with "hacked" moves and stats. The sprite and stats aren't connected.
I don't see what the complicated issue here is. Just because deoxys and wormadam do it a new way doesn't mean that giratina and shaymin can't revert back to the old way.
I've posted this before but apparently no one considered my point. Anyway, here it is again:
I remember i read somewhere (and actually believe that it might be true) that the D/P games might be able to be updated in order to have the new forms/pokemon and anything else new for that matter.
The reason i believe this might be true? Because we've had this happen before. Remember the berry glitch from advance that could be fixed by connecting your game to Pokemon Box? Imo i's possible that this will happen again. After connecting your D/P game to any platinum game, new data would be transferred to it, thus making it possible to have all the new forms. If i'm missing something here, please point it out.
I remember i read somewhere (and actually believe that it might be true) that the D/P games might be able to be updated in order to have the new forms/pokemon and anything else new for that matter.
The reason i believe this might be true? Because we've had this happen before. Remember the berry glitch from advance that could be fixed by connecting your game to Pokemon Box? Imo i's possible that this will happen again. After connecting your D/P game to any platinum game, new data would be transferred to it, thus making it possible to have all the new forms. If i'm missing something here, please point it out.
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