Birkal
We have the technology.
Hello and welcome! As many of you read in this thread, we are going to officialize the generation 4 CAP pre-evolutions as a community. In order to do so, I figured it would be wise to have a place to create them; thus, this subforum was created. It used to be the Analysis Workshop subforum, but we seldom used it. Now that it's refurbished into the CAP Pre-Evolution Workshop subforum, we can get to work.
To preface how this will function, I'd like to lay down a few ground rules:
- Flavor is the only priority when it comes to creating these pre-evolutions. We need to make sure that literally everything we do is done with the purpose of creating plausible and believable Pokemon. We absolutely do not want to mess with the Gen4 CAPs in any way, so we need to make sure our flavor choices are accurate in terms of what we'd expect from a real Pokemon. I cannot emphasize how important this is, really. We won't stand for pre-evolutions that are drastically different from what should be expected of a typical Pokemon. Changing more than one ability, creating clashing movepool with the fully evolved CAP, and changing more than one typing will be strictly prohibited, to name a few no-nos.
Going hand in hand with this point, we need to understand that viability in the Little Cup metagame does not matter. If fact, I am hoping that we form our pre-evolutions to cover a wide spectrum of viability. For example, some pre-evolutions should be probably perform poorly in the LC metagame, while others should do quite well. How viable they are does not matter; flavor is our top and only priority. Where they fall in Little Cup is not our concern in the slightest.
- We must be historically accurate. Through this process, we're going to do a lot of perusing through the CAP Process Archive to learn as much as we possibly can about what exists on the Gen4 pre-evolutions. We will also be referring to it frequently to make our flavor portions as accurate as possible by looking at the process of each Gen4 CAP. I'd recommend getting acquainted with this subforum; we're going to be using it a lot.
Another point to consider historically is that the current Pre-Evo Process didn't exist in Gen4. Rather, designs were submitted and proposed in a much looser fashion. Breezi and Voodoom, for example, were largely designed by a single artist (Cartoons! and DougJustDoug respectively) simply as an extra flavor add-on. Others, like Collosshale, was created as more of a community effort. Regardless of their origin, these designs have become integrated into the community's mindset and widely accepted. For that reason, there won't be any editing or changing of their artistic designs. Rather, we'll be focusing on what isn't set in stone (movepool, Pokedex, ability, etc) for the duration of this project.
- Everything will be done as a community. These pre-evolutions are going to be run much like a typical CAP, process and all. However, there are already puzzle pieces filled in for us; they all have sprites, artwork, and names! What we'll be doing as a community is widely dependent on what isn't currently decided upon (remember that CAP ASB holds no water with this project). It will be publicly announced what is and what isn't completed for each CAP pre-evo at the start of its officializing so that everyone is on the same page. Then, it will be the community's job to discuss and vote on the missing puzzle pieces to create our final product.
That's about all I have for now. Each process will be run by a Topic Leader of sorts; their responsibilities will include posting topics in the process and selecting slates. I'll be heading up the first process with Syclar, the pre-evolution to Syclant. If you want to get a head start, Syclant's process started here, so I'd recommend reading up if you have the time. The purpose of this thread is to ask me and the other CAP moderators about any questions you have about this pre-evolution officializing process. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, feel free to post them here. Thanks for your time; I can't wait to get started on this!