Twitch Plays Pokemon

[pancakemix]

Anyone else following this?

http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon

For those not in the know, what's going on here is a social experiment where tens of thousands of people are trying to control a single game of Pokemon at once. It's as hilarious as it sounds and it's spawning its own set of cultures within itself. It's amazing that they've gotten as far as they have.

[muy_thaiguy]

Yeah, posted this yesterday. Amazing they got as far as that.

[Metsfanmax]

Everyone has been worried about the Safari Zone, so we'll see how that goes. I think they'll only get through it if they can enable democracy mode the whole time.

[mrswdk]

Currently demolishing the Elite Four.

[maasman]

It started out as such a beautiful social experiment with thousands of people controlling one person, and then became tainted when he added democracy. I can understand for the safari zone, but once I saw they were pushing into democracy for things like the rocket hideout or when they were trying to access the PC I stopped watching. It became ruined for me and I gave up before they got the 7th badge. I bet they used democracy in victory road to finish it, which just makes me sad. It could have been so beautiful to see how a bunch of people did this, but to me it was irreparably ruined after democracy was used for more than the safari zone.

[muy_thaiguy]

In about 14 hours, they'll be doing another one. Maybe from gen 2?

[maasman]

If they do gen 2, I really hope they get rid of democracy. There is not a single reason to have it anymore since there is no way to not progress like there was with the safari zone in gen 1.

[pancakemix]

Honestly, I find the anarchy purism to be rubbish. It is inferior, but there are necessary points. In fact, it was more useless than anarchy at getting through some things. And yes, they used it for Victory Road, but the way they did it was beautiful. They actually queued up long commands and used the "wait" function to get the stones in the right places. So don't give the speech about how democracy "tainted" the run, because it didn't.

Gen 2 is confirmed to be starting at 7 AM ET. I expect it to be more straightforward anarchy than the first run since it has less difficult passages (Ice Path maybe...), so feel free to come down from your high horse and join us if you care to.

[JBlombier]

I haven't heard about this before, but it sounds surreal. Very nice experiment, especially because they achieve way more than I would expect.

[maasman]

Honestly, I find the anarchy purism to be rubbish. It is inferior, but there are necessary points. In fact, it was more useless than anarchy at getting through some things. And yes, they used it for Victory Road, but the way they did it was beautiful. They actually queued up long commands and used the "wait" function to get the stones in the right places. So don't give the speech about how democracy "tainted" the run, because it didn't.

Gen 2 is confirmed to be starting at 7 AM ET. I expect it to be more straightforward anarchy than the first run since it has less difficult passages (Ice Path maybe...), so feel free to come down from your high horse and join us if you care to.

It did though. It's something different than what it was in the beginning, which by definition is tainting it. Is it better than before? Who knows, that comes down to personal opinion. For me though I don't like it. With democracy it's just a painfully slow play through. I started watching it on day 2 and it was a beautiful thing to see them try to get past route 9, and I understand the need for it in the safari zone, I just wish he had taken out the step limit instead of going to democracy.

If you like it better this way then great, I'm not hating on you. It's just I have no motivation to watch a slow play through of a game when I could sit here and play it myself. With democracy it's less a radical new way to watch a game and more a slight change in feel.

[nàme]

Anarchy was ruined by trolls. Weed out all of them and I'd be happy to watch full anarchy.

[maasman]

Anarchy was ruined by trolls. Weed out all of them and I'd be happy to watch full anarchy.

That's what made it fun though, an eternal struggle between the a majority that wanted to move forward and a few dicks.

I should mention that I like the idea that once anarchy is reached democracy is turned off for the rest of the hour, but can anyone here actually give me a valid reason why democracy is even needed in gen 2? The only potential problem is the icepath, but even that only requires a few correct presses in a row. Nothing comes even close to the difficulty of gen 1 in terms of puzzles that need to be solved to progress.

[pancakemix]

My point is that democracy wasn't really the crutch everyone made it out to be. It had its own set of challenges and problems that needed to be overcome, even if they weren't the pure random of anarchy. And that no one really likes democracy anyway.

The system has been overhauled for the Gen 2 run. Anarchy rules for a hour, then it switches to democracy. Anarchy can be reinstated if a majority enters the "anarchy" command.

This works better because it effectively means democracy will never be in power, but it's there just in case and the hivemind can struggle with a problem before they give up (which I don't see happening, given what they can accomplish in anarchy). It also saves the game from being the political power struggle it was towards the end of the Gen 1 run.