Has this topic been done to death? Will Nintendo ever listen to fans who are just begging to throw them money to make this a reality? Who knows. There are, however, two important happenings in the gaming industry right now that lead me to believe that this could be more of a reality in the near future than many of us believe. The first is the soon to be released fourth expansion to Blizzard Entertainment’s, World of Warcraft.
If I have to explain to you what World of Warcraft is, I might be better off asking what you are doing on this site. The game is a juggernaut. It has been and undoubtedly will be for a number of years to come. Some of you might be asking yourselves, “What do Panda’s and Monks have to do with a Pokemon MMORPG?” Well, it isn’t the Pandas that we want to touch upon. In Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard will be implementing a dedicated “Pet Battle System”. Now, If you are a Pokemon fan like I am, see if this sounds familiar…
“You can teach your pets unique abilities and attacks…as they fight and win battles, your pets will gain experience and level up. In addition…you can now also encounter and capture pets in the wild…” http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/pet-battle
Lets not beat around the bush. “Pet Battle System” = Pokemon. We know this. We know that WoW is implementing this. The point is, that it can be done, and Nintendo (that we know of) is not doing it. The design of Pokemon is so simple to implement into an MMORPG, it’s silly. Pokemon regions could be expansions, cities could be quest hubs, events like the Silph Co.Tower, or the Underground Hideout in Celadon city could be team based dungeons, and rare pokemon or the Elite Four battles could be equivalent to raids.
The second piece of the puzzle involves the Wii U and another well known franchise. Information has already been widely available that the Dragon Quest franchise will be making its MMORPG debut on the Wii U with Dragon Quest X. This is important for a few reasons. First, we see that Nintendo is not worried about releasing a console based MMORPG. Second, we know that the Wii U will have a large amount of compatability with Nintendo’s handheld devices. Put those two things together and it’s not impossible to think that a Pokemon MMORPG is on the way. Imagine taking your single player experience on the handheld and continuing the experience in the console world, with thousands of other players in a living, breathing, online community. Hmm, yeah, take my money.
So in turn, this is actually a positive article. Don’t get me wrong, I want to wake up tomorrow and read a statement from Nintendo saying the Pokemon MMO will be available 4th quarter 2012, but I know that won’t happen. What I do see are different companies putting together the pieces that could lead to one of the most successful MMORPGS of all time, and I can’t wait. Until then…
