Twitch plays Pokemon

SeantheMan

I don't know what forum/sub to put this under...

As it's not just about Pokemon, I don't know the point of the social experiment but....it's weird...

FAQ
What is this?

TwitchPlaysPokemon is a social experiment, it is a stream of the Gameboy version of Pokemon Red (151 romhack) running on an emulator. An IRC bot translates buttons said in chat into keypresses (simulated in software, no fancy typist robots).

Basically for the last 5 days people have been playing Pokemon Red.
But...they are all playing the same character...inputting commands via chat.

As I type this there are 70,000 + people trying to get the character to move

http://nl.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon

Apparently they have 4 badges so far.
It also took 4 hours to 'cut' a tree

Kirby

The bottom line is that out of 70,000 people, at least 10k are going to troll. You have people pressing start to try and force a quit and other intentionally giving bad directional input.

It's entertaining for about 60 seconds....then it's just frustrating as he walks in circles. They will complete it in the end though.

Canis Lupus

That was a waste of 10 seconds.

saidinmilamber

Omg, Flareon just got released!!!!!!! This is so compelling!!!

VinLieger

There are some great moments coming out of it.

I cant wait for this

Vicxas

I watched about 5 minutes and that was my max. The anarchy is hilarious.

SeantheMan

It's all you can really watch for at a time.

I tune in every now and again. I think I checked 3 or 4 times today over the space of 5 hours...they were still in the same building :P

I remember the list of the 6 pokemon they had popped up..and god...it was awful

Something like 2 Rattatas , a Pidgey, a Drowzey , Farfetchd, and Oddish

Apparently they lost their Charmeleon (let it go), as well as Flareon (which they were actually trying to make a Vaporeon out of ....to 'surf' )


Watching it now, trying to fight a trainer...Ghastly destroyin all pokemons :P

Fawk Nin

It's going to take them months to get through Victory Road.

The Flareon/Vaporean debacle was brilliant.

2smiggy

i never played pokemon , so watching is difficult for me. Why is it so hard for them, can someone give me a quick idea of what is happening. I know the pokemon cartoons from years back, just never had a gameboy or any of the games

SeantheMan

2smiggy wrote: »

i never played pokemon , so watching is difficult for me. Why is it so hard for them, can someone give me a quick idea of what is happening. I know the pokemon cartoons from years back, just never had a gameboy or any of the games

Basically the commands are being done via text input
So imagine a gameboy controller ... UP DOWN LEFT RIGHT A B START

Now, if you type UP in chat, the character moves up

Now imagine 50,000-90,000 typing at the same time...for the 1 game !

This is why it's mental and impossible for them :P

Also, atm..they are fighting a ghastly, 4 pokemon dead. Last one left is a Pidgeot.....but....pidgeot can't harm ghastly.
So , they'll lose in a few mins. And be back at a Pokecentre or something again

2smiggy

ah , i was wondering why on earth the were making no progress !! and that's what all the anarchy chat is about !!

mayordenis

It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Kirby

They moved to a "democracy" system yesterday which will make things a little smoother. Before, people just spammed their choices and the character spazzed out.

Now, people vote for a few seconds and the most popular direction or button is chosen. It's "slower" but much more efficient.

Angron

The thing is, the lag between the vid and chat is making things worse, causing doublemoves and such. Safari Zone will be fun, as will Silph Co.

Fawk Nin

SeantheMan wrote: »

Basically the commands are being done via text input
So imagine a gameboy controller ... UP DOWN LEFT RIGHT A B START

Now, if you type UP in chat, the character moves up

Now imagine 50,000-90,000 typing at the same time...for the 1 game !

This is why it's mental and impossible for them :P

Also, atm..they are fighting a ghastly, 4 pokemon dead. Last one left is a Pidgeot.....but....pidgeot can't harm ghastly.
So , they'll lose in a few mins. And be back at a Pokecentre or something again

Please, refer to Bird Jesus by his proper name.

A Brad Maddox Guy

Have they fought Sabrina yet? I'd imagine it would take an age to get through that gym

Angron

MitchKoobski

Half the fun of this is the religious stuff, images and fan art coming from it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/twitchplayspokemon

pablomakaveli

I went on it a little earlier. Whats the democracy and anarchy thing about?

MitchKoobski

pablomakaveli wrote: »

I went on it a little earlier. Whats the democracy and anarchy thing about?

http://www.reddit.com/r/twitchplayspokemon/comments/1y90kl/explanation_of_everything_thus_far/

New Systems: Democracy Vs Anarchy
With the chaos, and the seemingly insurmountable Rocket Hideout rooms, the Game Host has instituted a method of voting on the system of player input. They have been termed Democracy and Anarchy.

Anarchy - The way the game started. Nothing more than the IRC parsing for command input, and when all previous action frames are complete, the next input is used.

Democracy - The new system where commands are tallied by the parser for twenty seconds, then the most-voted on command is used for the next action. The Anarchy/Democracy Bar - The system itself is constantly being voted on in a tug-of-war running tally. If the votes for one crosses the threshold (indicated by a line on the bar) then the system will change until it is pushed the other direction.

saidinmilamber

For those just joining, here's a history of what's happened so far, and here's our current party, objectives, and scripts so you can read the chat.

EDIT: Though here's a super-quick summary





Praise the Helix!

spiralism

Finally getting to the end of the Rocket hideout and actually beating Giovanni before using Dig to exit without the Silph Scope...i cracked up, must admit:pac:

Vicxas

Whens the last time they were in democracy?

Every time I log on red is rolling around like an epileptic victim.

saidinmilamber

Vicxas wrote: »

Whens the last time they were in democracy?

Every time I log on red is rolling around like an epileptic victim.

Not since The Descent into Hell (Team Rocket HQ)

TheDoc

Only watched it for two minutes before declaring it ****e logged off

Now have a hankering to get an emulator and play original pokemon

copeyhagen

only sound working for me, pic just frozen....

funny idea alright though.

hots

TheDoc wrote: »

Only watched it for two minutes before declaring it ****e logged off

Now have a hankering to get an emulator and play original pokemon

I did exactly that, I'd say ROM downloads are going through the roof!

shruikan2553

http://www.reddit.com/live/sw7bubeycai6hey4ciytwamw3a
This is great for explaining whats going on.

I have a look at whats going on now and again but no idea where people come up with these names. The only time I saw people talking in chat was to yell about using dig in the tower.

deathrider

Watched some of it tonight, as they fumbled round the Lavender Town tower. It's a bizzarre idea.

VinLieger

So they are through the Safari Zone thanks to democracy, there was no way anarchy could ever do it.

Now to add surf to a pokemon and hope to god that pokemon doesn't get tossed for whatever reason

saidinmilamber

VinLieger wrote: »

So they are through the Safari Zone thanks to democracy, there was no way anarchy could ever do it.

Now to add surf to a pokemon and hope to god that pokemon doesn't get tossed for whatever reason

That was just incredible to watch! I really think we need to get Lapras, teach it surf, then head back to the safari zone and catch a bunch of pokemon in the water and teach them surf too.

VinLieger

saidinmilamber wrote: »

That was just incredible to watch! I really think we need to get Lapras, teach it surf, then head back to the safari zone and catch a bunch of pokemon in the water and teach them surf too.

Was off the grid all weekend and come back to see Bloody Sunday where 10 pokemon were release in an attempt to retrieve Zapdos from the PC, among those released were the beloved Slayer of Trees Dux and Digrat.

A moment of silence please........

saidinmilamber

There were 12 in total. Never forget the price we paid for the Judas Bird.

Angron

I like the not-nickname nicknames, like King Leer and Apollo Justice

saidinmilamber

Today is a day of miracles though. We have revived Lord Helix. Not only that but he's actually in our party, with Bird Jesus (Pigeot), Bird Judas (Zapdos), King Fonz (Nidoking), AIR Jordan (Lapras), and the All-Terrain-Venomoth. This will be our team for the rest of the game, Helix willing :cool:

Grimebox

I enjoyed this at its inception but the community makes me cringe so bad. Their made up religion and everything to do with it.

"Everyone keeps saying Flareon and Zapdos are false prophets, but the real enemy.. is Bill.".

False prophets? Wtf are they talking about? Makes my skins crawl

mayordenis

They're just having a bit of a laugh really, don't see the big deal.

The whole thing is only funny if you apply the humour (which you're not into, which is fine) of the community, without it this project would be more or less dead by now.

saidinmilamber

Grimebox wrote: »

I enjoyed this at its inception but the community makes me cringe so bad. Their made up religion and everything to do with it.

"Everyone keeps saying Flareon and Zapdos are false prophets, but the real enemy.. is Bill.".

False prophets? Wtf are they talking about? Makes my skins crawl

The melodrama is what makes the entire thing. Without that, it'd be as boring all hell as you watch a skewed random number generator struggle to move past a ledge. Flareon was blamed for the release of the Charmeleon "Abby" and the Rattata "Jay Leno" way back on Day 4. Zapdos was blamed for the slaughter yesterday when 12 pokémon were released in an attempt to remove the Zapdos from the PC. Both are associated with the Democracy alignment, and hence the Dome Fossil.

Fawk Nin

Grimebox wrote: »

I enjoyed this at its inception but the community makes me cringe so bad. Their made up religion and everything to do with it.

"Everyone keeps saying Flareon and Zapdos are false prophets, but the real enemy.. is Bill.".

False prophets? Wtf are they talking about? Makes my skins crawl

Nothing wrong with being an Atheist. I hope some day the great Helix shows you the true way though.

Seriously though, it's all just a laugh, applying an elaborate (and religious) backstory to random events.

snausages

Yeah, the injoke memes are cringey. Reminds me of 12 year olds being 'random'.

A guy I know is writing a masters thesis on this. It's due on Friday.

A Brad Maddox Guy

Grimebox wrote: »

I enjoyed this at its inception but the community makes me cringe so bad. Their made up religion and everything to do with it.

"Everyone keeps saying Flareon and Zapdos are false prophets, but the real enemy.. is Bill.".

False prophets? Wtf are they talking about? Makes my skins crawl

This heretic must be an agent of dome :pac:

VinLieger

snausages wrote: »

Yeah, the injoke memes are cringey. Reminds me of 12 year olds being 'random'.

A guy I know is writing a masters thesis on this. It's due on Friday.

Its all part of the fun, each one has been spawned from the complete randomness that results from the mass of inputs hitting the system.

snausages

I just don't find arbitrarily zany stuff funny. The stuff in the game is funny by itself.

Grimebox

snausages wrote: »

I just don't find arbitrarily zany stuff funny. The stuff in the game is funny by itself.

Ditto. This made me groan

saidinmilamber wrote: »

The melodrama is what makes the entire thing. Without that, it'd be as boring all hell as you watch a skewed random number generator struggle to move past a ledge. Flareon was blamed for the release of the Charmeleon "Abby" and the Rattata "Jay Leno" way back on Day 4. Zapdos was blamed for the slaughter yesterday when 12 pokémon were released in an attempt to remove the Zapdos from the PC. Both are associated with the Democracy alignment, and hence the Dome Fossil.

Each to their own

G.J.

I've been loving the attempts to get the right Pokémon out of the PC, it always gets pretty intense. Until it switches over to democracy. Then it gets boring, and frustrating due to all of the overshooting.

saidinmilamber

G.J. wrote: »

I've been loving the attempts to get the right Pokémon out of the PC, it always gets pretty intense. Until it switches over to democracy. Then it gets boring, and frustrating due to all of the overshooting.

There'll be no more going near the PC I'd say after the massacre yesterday. The team we currently have is good enough. Wouldn't mind swapping Venomoth for Drowzee, but The Keeper has a more important task...

SeantheMan

They've managed to get themselves stuck between a wall, a table and a trainer and can't progress further.
This means they've to grind away, or deliberately die hahaha

Grimebox

Guardian reporting it

J. Marston

The Guardian will report on anything these days. They had an article on Doge last week.

landsleaving

They had an article today on IKEA not selling a type of shelf anymore. Because it's being replaced with a virtually identical one.

I'm not even sure if it was meant to be serious or not.

Also back on topic, I keep hoping to log on when they're having a battle but no, always walking, walking in circles. Was it interesting at all to watch a battle?

SeantheMan

landsleaving wrote: »

Also back on topic, I keep hoping to log on when they're having a battle but no, always walking, walking in circles. Was it interesting at all to watch a battle?

They are fighting now if you tune in.

Not really, they drag on a bit...and are often boring.
Especially the ones where it was bird vs ghost....and neither could hit the other. It would end by one pokemon killing itself through confusion or something:rolleyes:

The best part so far I thought was they had to try get to a pokemon daycare centre. To get there you have to go down and jump over a series of ledges.
There is a ledge just after the door to the centre..so if you press Down 1 extra time...you will overstep it and have to go all the way back to the top.
This took them hours.:p

The religion and sidestories...names etc are funny. But I only check in once or twice a day via Reddit and read the updates as to what has happened.:rolleyes:

I personally can't watch more than 3 minutes at a time, and I never sit there inputting commands.

I don't know who these people are who are sitting there all day spamming commands at the screen and following it religiously.

The boardsie saidinmilamber seems to be mad into it


This is the best place to just check updates...more efficient than the stream
http://www.reddit.com/live/sw7bubeycai6hey4ciytwamw3a