Amethyst

It's in the Pokemart Anyway, uhhhh, I haven't added anymore TMs yet I mentioned this before, but, I want players to be developing their teams at all stages of the game, and for now that means you guys are catching new and better Pokemon and evolving them. But that'll only go so far so I'm saving the good TMs for when you get to that super-late game stage, so you can still feel like your teams are moving forward.

That is Mr. Bigglesworth. He's been our error 404 page pretty much since Black and White came out. The inside joke is that I used to- and often still do- hate on Garbodor for being, well, gross, and then another one of our veteran users, by the name of Ice, likes to tease me about it. At one point when I was expressing my disgust at the thing he linked me to this perturbing image: and created his little Garbodor character, named for a fluffy white cat, Mr. Bigglesworth. and he has never let me forget it ever And obviously, I couldn't not put that somewhere in the game. ;D

Liiike, hi again~! It's valley-ame, totally back for another exciting news post, yaa-- *shot* Okay, no, actually I have to put on a srs faic for a little bit. Our last season of ladder competition ended a couple weeks ago, and we had to post-pone verifying the winners because we couldn't the logs for a little bit and blahdeblahdeblah Okay, so, we got the logs. And I'm happy to say that I can't prove that anyone was boosting this time. Now, whether that's because no one did, which I'm going to put on my rose-coloured glasses and believe, or because we lost all of the battle logs from april-onwards thanks to a technical error and therefore wouldn't see if anyone did, I can't say. That error has been resolved going forward; it was a silent plug-in update to PO and noone knew about it until we needed it and blahblah it happened and shouldn't happen again OKAY point is nobody was boosting as far as we can prove. Which is good. However. A different issue that's been going on for a much longer period of time was brought to my attention. That is, ladder sniping. Sniping works like so: Suppose there are two players on the ladder, a 1400 player and a 1300 player. In a perfect universe, the 1400 player will always beat the 1300 player. However, because of the disparity in rating, the 1400 player will gain fewer points and the 1300 player will lose fewer points in that scenario, than if the ratings were closer. This is what keeps the ladder balanced, and fair. Sniping is when, for instance, that 1400 player gets on an alt, ranked 1200, and fights that 1300 player. In a perfect universe, because the 1200-ranked alt is actually a 1400 player, the 1300 player will still lose. However, because the 1300 player is losing to an alt with a lower ranking, that player loses more points, significantly decreasing their ladder score. This is problematic on its own because it puts an artificial directed stress and unfair disadvantage onto the targeted player. It becomes even more problematic when not just one person is doing, but an entire group, and even more so still when the group as a whole selects specific targets to snipe and cooperates to do so. And unfortunately, that's exactly what's been happening. I'm going to quote Hark here: The bottom-line is that this is absolutely not okay. Regrettably, I've learned this was taking place even during our first competitions too, so now even sans boosting I'm forced to reevaluate the merit of our top-placers. But that aside, let's focus on what it means for this season. After discussing it with the staff, we've decided that we cannot in good consciousness honor the top-placers of this season who were involved in this activity, and unfortunately, the majority of the people who would have won places, were indeed involved. For the sake of avoiding drama, I do not intend to list the names of the guilty- and I would appreciate it if the other users who know would display the same tact. They already know who they are, so there's little point. We cannot honor the top places by listed rank alone, however, unlike with boosting, which affects only one's personal score, it's not so easy to just skip the guilty party and go to the next on the list. Because of the general warp that sniping has had on the ladder's competitors as a whole, I am sorry to say, we have no option but to annul this season's competition entirely. For that I am sorry. I realise that's disappointing, and I myself am very disappointed that this has even happened in the first place. I'm further aggrieved that we do not have a long term solution to reliably detect this activity. And as such, I'm further sorry to say that we cannot hold ladder competitions- at least in this format- again in the foreseeable future. It would be folly to do so until we have a reliable way to either detect or prohibit this behavior. So that's a thing. Sorry to say it, guys. IN OTHER LESS DISAPPOINTING NEWS Well, I'm giving Edge the second half of this post, so here he is:

Hiya, welcome. http://www.monkeypro.net/gameinfo.php?id=217 That link should work. That original mirror isn't available in some countries, sorry.

are you serious did someone actually-- wow okay before i would admit that the butcher was creative, if horrible, but there's a difference between the not-okay that the butcher thing is, and the not-okay that that is that is just wow. Anyway, I think this thread has been derailed enough. Incidentally, that link did give me an idea. Although I don't want anyone to have to sell their Pokemon- least of all for that- I could do something like that that newsreporter in DPPt Solaceon Town who would give you a Ball each day if you showed him a certain species. Cash reward instead of a ball, of course. I'll admit that would be tricky to code, but I think that's a viable solution for now, non?

This is actually a neat topic idea. My roommate was playing the game the other day and said something like he'd just hook Alakazam onto the PULSE and superpsychic blast errythang I'm going to refrain from suggesting anything myself though. c:

i-- i am lITERALLY CRYING RIHG NTO W WHY WOULD ANUWONE DOO THAT jesusc rhsut i can teven release my pokemon without feeling guolty (and in fact i never have) how cAN anye NONE DO THAT THAT ISNT EVEN OKAY THAT IS 0% OKAY nonononononononononononono

Wild Pokemon can have any of 3 Natures can be passed down, Abilities can't because that part of the breeding script was crashing eggs. But, there's still a 50 or 33% chance of getting the nature you want anyway so it's not a big deal. Pretty sure event pokemon work with dream world stuff. I remember seeing someone get a Vital Spirit Magby, so if that works, Eevee should.

You should be able to. Theoretically. If not, there's a problem.

The stationary sprites are always included with the download, so yeah

...Oooh, good catch with Scraggy! Looks like I missed that one when I was putting DW abilities in. It is conceivable that I miss Pokemon like that. However, looking at the files, Abra and Budew do properly have Magic Guard/Leaf Guard, so... I dunno what to say about those. (I'll concede that I haven't seen Magic Guard on Abra either... Maybe something with trades can't generate DW abilities, but then breeding can.) Scraggy has been fixed for the next episode.

@Uganda, correct @Mcmc, I'm pulling animated sprite support with episode 9 because it just causes too many problems for people

You weren't the only one. xP @ Tetsuma, it's gonna be with the next release, which is coming up soon. With testing time though, it's still longer than a week away though.

Any hatched Pokemon has an equal chance of having the DW ability as any natural one. In the main series this chance can be modified with the mother(?) passing down its DW ability but I had to remove that from the code for this because, as Inuki can tell you, it was crashing the eggs. But you've got a 50%/33% chance anyway.

I may give this a try and see just how far we can push it. Although I hear this thing can also give, for instance, infinite moneys, so I'm not sure how much I like endorsing this as a solution. Still, I realise the speed is a problem compared to most games, and I do appreciate you sharing your solution with us.

You could probably get Flygon, but it might take a lot of Voltorb Flipping or Slot Machining. Which is okay, I don't really think it's that fun if you just buy ALL the coins. xP Admittedly we are a bit starved for money atm, but my thing about rebattleable trainers stands for now. I will see if I can find something else to tide y'all over during episodes in the future, but that probably won't be in by episode 9.

@Johnny, you get a Water Stone either way. That was less a factor of which join you gang, and more of I didn't want people evolving their Vulpix/Growlithe right before the bug gym. xP

I can't say I have, but I'm not sure how many more computer-based Pokemon there are >>

In the conditionals, as long as the weather stormy, Electrike shouldn't disappear until you kill or catch it (so even running or, god forbid, losing to it, wouldn't eliminate it. Honestly, I need to make some other events as robust as that one... ...Such as, for instance, I can think of a couple people who wouldn't mind Porygon being that way.

^ Valid! For now, I can't worry too much about the sprites because 1) Animated sprites are still a thing 2) As of next episode they need to stop being a thing 3) When Gen 6 comes sprites may not be a thing at all but we'll see!

Forever? That's not right... I would think he should just be gone until the next storm.

Actually, I've added some heart scales to the early game areas as well.