Pokemon on Nintendo WiFI: What have we done?
The following article intents to raise some concerns about the status quo as shaped by the release of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl in North America.
Okay, things are not that tragic as implied by the title but it sounds catchy, doesn't it?
The games have sold more than 5 million copies in Japan and a bit more than 1 million were sold in North America in less than a week. Australia is getting the game soon while Europe is still waiting for a release date.
Nintendo WiFi works indeed as intended by the game designers; or not? Players from all over the world trade Pokémon with friends far away or even with complete strangers thanks to the GTS. Many internet-proficient players exchange Friend Codes in message boards or chatrooms, set up auctions and also arrange specific item/monster trades. High leveled Pokémon, legendaries, shinies and rare items are very high in the stock market as one would expect, but unfortunately the whole thing turned a bit more capitalistic than the designers expected.
Apparently many people abuse the cloning glitch in Pokémon Emerald, which is acceptable to some extent, while many others use the infamous cheating devices (such as Gameshark) or the newly-appeared save game editors (along with a flash card and an illegal copy of the games). One might say that this happened before and I'll agree, there have been sharkers and cheaters in every Generation; scarce though. However the internet has no borders or physical limits; a sharker can supply dozens of people with elusive yet hacked Pokémon in GTS and get other high priced ones in return. There are players that have completed the National Pokédex in a matter of days what good is that however if they skipped the whole game? The voice of reason says "Why'd you care about what they do? Don't trade with them." but I can really see that leading the serious players to form isolated communities. A serious, devoted player, may occasionally use a cheating device for a variety of reasons, limited free time being the most common of them but they will never abuse it. I am not implying that only hardcore games should have rare or strong Pokémon, everyone can get one for themselves with a little effort and that justifies the term trade; every sacrifice made is balanced by the subsequent gain and that's what the game designers also envisioned.
Whose fault is it when players seek Pokémon that are as of yet unavailable? Should we blame the people that reverse-engineered the games and let the fans know of Arceus or Sheymin before Nintendo's word? Should we blame the profit-seeking companies that manufacture generic cheating devices? Should we blame the programmers that created tools such as PokeSav without thinking of the consequences? I don't think so…
"Any lock can be broken or bypassed" as hackers say, but this time things were different: the door was left open. Successful online games like World Of Warcraft have a series of security layers that prevent the cunning players from using cheating devices that would spoil the game's consistency; people ask for meritocracy and equal chances in the real world and that's what they also expect from well-designed videogames.
Diamond and Pearl are great games and pack among others a rich storyline, tight gameplay, appealing visuals and are guaranteed to offer countless hours of enjoyment but the designers failed to predict the way things would turn out with the online part of the game. In my opinion they ought to have implemented a way to check the validity of the traded Pokémon…
The influential Pokémon fansites that shape the online Pokémon community are willing to help, take for example the uncoordinated omerta concerning the Emerald cloning glitch but it's ultimately up to Gamefreak and Nintendo to protect their system for the better good.
Melkor @ 03/05/2007, 10:47:19 pm
Hm, I don't really know if I agree with you or not. All your article is based on a supposedly intrinsical value of Pokémon themselves, but in fact a Pkmn value is just based on the effort you place on it, and its only yours.
A "hacked" Pokemon, as long as it complies with the general metagame rules, does not differ from a "legal" Pokemon on any point. Yes, you can have full IVs you otherwise wouldn't probably get. Yes, you can have it on lv100 without wasting that much time (as if we didn't already have secret bases full of Memento lv100 Pkmn, cloned Rare Candies in Emerald and so on) And yes, you don't lose that much time on EV training (though if you know what you're doing it doesnt take you more than a couple of hours).
For some people training is what adds value to their Pokemon. For some others not. For some others its perhaps designing the strategy, the entire team or whatever. You can have 493 lv100 31 IVd Pkmn without having any idea on how to use them.
I agree with you in that little kids do not think about these things at all. Some of them even give them a "life" or whatever. Therefore I must agree with you that idiots taking advantage of little kids shouldn't be allowed to enter the WiFi system, nor even life.
What could GF have done? Place an obedience bit on promotional Pokemon? How much time did that last on RS? This time it even gets easier to get over all protections, since rumors say that the basis of the PokeSav comes from a… somewhat suspicious source, for giving it a name.
GTS already controls Pkmn, maxed out EVs, legal attacks and such, or at least they said so. What else could they do? As long as a Pkmn complies with the metagame, there is no control they could place on it. You cannot just distinguish a regular player from a device-using player just by the Pkmn they send to the GTS, and if there was such a measure, the latter would rapidly try to discover how to make their Pkmn seem to be "legit". DS power may enable the game to use an encryption key powerfull enough to avoid them succeding on getting over it, but the key is already somehow known.
I may be saying just stupid things xD.
Arty2 @ 04/05/2007, 01:40:18 am
rumors say that the basis of the PokeSav comes from a… somewhat suspicious source
This isn't the first time, the sources behind the "Mew Glitch" in Pokemon Red and the "Clone Glitch" in Emerald are also suspicious.
I do agree that any hacked Pokemon can be virtually legit but as I mentioned, that didn't really matter in the previous generations since cheating devices are that widespread. Things are different now however because an online videogame has no physical limits, and when you allow online multiplayer in such a game, meritocracy should be one of your basic principles. As game designers they should have defended their basic principles. If they wanted people to just have fun playing Pokemon matches (and I would really support this decision), then they could have designed a lending system but if they failed to take that into account then their design is obviously flawed at this point.
Melkor @ 04/05/2007, 05:46:15 pm
Well, they still let you play level 100 battles online without having to max out the Pkmn experience.
There is still no real online ranking system, and they could have easily done it. Basing one's merit on the Pkmn you have is a limited way to conceive a meritocracy, since most players will end up with 480+ in some time. Nor even having the 5 star black card would do it.
In the long term, all that matters are battling skills. And we have an online system without a battling ranking. Why didn't GF implement a free online battle mode based on rankings, just as it was done with MKDS and many others?
Keitaro @ 04/05/2007, 11:58:21 pm
Since it already tracks EVs and legal moves, the only advantage people have with a gameshark over those without would mainly be event pokemon in the uber metagame. You can essentially level a pokemon to whenever it learns it's last move (provided it's properly trained) and it's usable in online play with no drawbacks. In comparison to other generations that in itself is a miracle.
Being able to have max IVs and the right nature is a shot in the foot for someone like me who does do a lot of breeding; the most IVs they can inherit are 3, and it's virtually impossible to get another three randomly at 31 (tens of thousands). Then again 10-15 stat points isn't really going to make that much of a difference in competitive play.
These kinds of issues will always be around in online games that can't be patched (a la PSO), and I don't see why they couldn't have put in a detailed ranking system as well. Maybe Battle Revolution for the Wii will instead.
Roihu @ 05/05/2007, 12:19:20 am
Well I agree with you it bothers me that so many illegitimate pokemon are running around I mean I can understand abusing a glitch but using a GS or a AR is going to far specially in a game that goes across the seas and around the land with wi-fi. I wish they had made a lock or something making pokemon caught in wrong areas where blocked at least I mean if they were caught in the right area and their just a pokemon that they made for completing the dex or something but I don't like illegitimate things….
Arty2 @ 05/05/2007, 12:37:36 pm
Unless I am mistaken Battle Revolution does not introduce any ranking system. I like to think the whole situation like a card game: your strategy can only succeed if your cards provide you the potential; fake cards can be easily spotted though.
I have been thinking about a system that would be able to determine which Pokemon is fake and which is not. They could implement a more complex encrypted checksum for every Pokemon and that'd be unbreakable if they wanted to; GenIII transfered Pokemon could still be hacked however. They could also log each Pokemon's personality number, OT and ID and check any Pokemon uploaded to the GTS but that'd be constly and they're trying to cut budgets…
PoKeSaFaRi @ 06/05/2007, 01:50:57 pm
Answer to me is quite simple. If you trade for a Pokémon that happens to be illegal pokemon, just "release" it as soon as you notice. No big deal.
About stopping illegal Pokémon, the system has some sort of hacked-pokemon wall, as I've tried that myself, and it seems to check the ribbons and the pkmn's stats only.
Perfect_Chaos @ 06/05/2007, 06:13:16 pm
You might want to add another cloning glitch to this article. There is also a cloning glitch in both Pokemon Diamond and Pearl where you put your Pokemon on GTS and shut it off after the little clock thing in the message goes around 7-8.5 times to get 2 of the same Pokemon. One in your box or party and one on GTS.
Surgo @ 13/05/2007, 12:09:07 am
There are lots of comments here about shark detection etc. using various pieces of data that seem to be out of place, like a pokemon being caught in the wrong place or at the wrong level or any combination of the various bits and flags that make up a pokemon's data. This is a fool's errand. The only thing this will accomplish is make more people learn how to shark legitimate-looking pokemon to trick the system. This is not difficult to accomplish.
One reason that encryption of the game code doesn't stop sharking and never will stop sharking, no matter if the system is powerful enough to support a larger key or not, is because that in the end you need to store the key somewhere on the game, or the system. You can obscure that but you can't secure it. This is postulating, but I'd argue that the reason encryption of the game exists in the first place is to delay its breaking and thus the distribution of roms for about a week or so until the launch is over -- I can see no other purpose than this, and it's a good purpose. The point is, though, that there is no encryption scheme they can put on an isolated system and disk that is unbreakable in any sense of the word.
A small correction to an above breeder -- in Emerald and Diamond/Pearl, it's possible to pass four DVs down from parents, not three.
Anon @ 13/05/2007, 02:34:34 pm
Browzilla, not everybody can fly to the moon to go to these Nintendo events. I say hacking event Pokémon is fine, because the method to obtain them legitimately is just unfair.
Hack the items for the events, and don't influence the IVs in any way, and I'm personally fine with it. In fact, I commend it.
PTA @ 19/05/2007, 08:04:37 am
Personally, I don't care what goes on between two players, but when it hits the GTS, a public server, THAT'S when you got a problem. Not everyone wants a hacked Pokemon, some people actually want to play legitimately and that needs to be respected.
Dare I say it's the idiots and liars that are the REAL issue here. But Nintendo could have at least MARKED a hacked Pokemon on the servers in purple text or let people check the summaries on the GTS. Anything would be better than how it is now.
Considering that Mystery Gift has the option to download info not only from Wireless and WiFi, but people on your FC List as well, we'll just have to see how the event legend deal works out. Logically, anyone with acess to WiFi, another player's FC (who was able to obtain an item to pass it on) or a Download Station should have NO excuse with getting an event legend/ item to acess event legend this gen.
But we'll see.
Roark @ 20/05/2007, 09:30:15 am
Look, advocating technological solutions to social problems will never work. Ever stop to ask why people hack things on a stupid game? Well, they're lazy, or time constrained, or don't cosider spending three weeks to get every shiny starter a good use of time.
Encryption? Tracking hacked pokemon? Unique identifier keys? This is sounding like a discussion on DRM. There's really no way for the game to tell the difference between a hack and a legit atm. It generates a unique key; the hacks manouever around the key and just tell the game "generate." So, everything appears legit.
The only way to really solve the problem is to attack the social parts underneath. There's tools to do this: friend codes. You don't want hacked stuff? Start a reference system, known "good traders" and whatnot. Tech solutions won't work; people always stay one step ahead.
lwelyk @ 25/05/2007, 02:22:27 am
Well For the older event pokemon, I think hacking is fine. Just because there's probably not going to be anyway to get them anymore. But if at all possible I prefer it if there illegitimately legitimate. Meaning, using a code to get the ticket or to warp to the area. After all not everyone has the time to drive 100 miles and stand in line with a bunch of whiny people. As for the new event pokemon… Hopefully mystery gift will get you them. Rather than the annoying events.
pika @ 28/05/2007, 07:20:12 pm
from a… somewhat suspicious source? what does that mean.
besides that the only way to be somewhat cheat proof is to store all data on a trusted system. that can be the server in online games or it could be consoles which have not been hacked to run unsigned code. pokemon only running with a net connection would suck. and so would a ds with no homebrew imo.
Alastor @ 10/06/2007, 04:39:44 am
It's Nintendo's own fault. They make them too hard to catch.
Zuggy @ 15/06/2007, 10:11:29 am
Ok, a couple of things. Not that I'm a "cheater", but what you're saying is a little silly.
#1 - If you trade for a pokemon, why do you CARE where it came from? How does it make it any more or less good for you, if you know that the past owner caught it legit, hacked it, or got it from space aliens? How does it change ANYTHING for you? Aside from a very slight edge in competitive battling, (and I think most people will agree that strategy and movesets matter more than the extra couple of points that perfect IVs give) what effect does it have at all in the game?
(Note: "Making me feel bad, because I had to stand in the rain for 4 hours to get my cerebi, and he got it without standing in the rain" is not a good reason, in my book.)
#2 - What do you expect nintendo or gamefreak to do? There is NOTHING THEY COULD DO to make pokemon unhackable. Think about it:
- When you buy the game, you have, in theory, access to the ENTIRE GAME CODE. There isn't really any way they could stop someone determined from just dumping the cart ROM to a file, and disassembling it. After they've done that, they could just make up their own checksums.
- When you do wifi trades, it's just sending it out over regular wifi. Computers can do wifi. Nothing is really stopping a hacker from just writing a program that makes the computer send out "I'm a DS!" wifi-messages. "Look at me, I'm a DS! Let's trade pokemon! Want my level 100 Mewtwo?" Heck, if someone did that (if they haven't already) then the game wouldn't even have been hacked directly. You'd just be playing "normally" on your game, and the DS got messages that make it think that it just received a level 100 legendary in trade, or whatever.
And so on.
The fundamental problem is the same as it is for the movie industry has: You can't keep something secure, even if you encrypt it, if you have to give users the keys to view it. Sure, you can try to make it hard, but if someone is determined, they can figure it out. Because everything they need to figure it out is in the game cartridge. All it takes is patience. And chances are, the more popular something is, the greater the chance that SOMEONE, somewhere on the internet, will be bored enough to figure it out.
So yeah. What do you expect nintendo to do? They can do base "is this legit?" checks on things that pass through GTS, to make sure that they don't have anything that is just outright illegal, (spiritombs with wonderguard, for example), but for things with legal movesets, how do you tell the difference? Sure, that thing with maxed IVs might be hacked. Or it might be someone who got REALLY lucky, after a LOT of breeding. And boy would they be mad if it got deleted as a "hack".
Dragon Master_7749 @ 19/06/2007, 01:43:12 pm
i aggree that cheating is wrong, but i know how some people could be tempted to cheat. i myself have cheated on pokemon ruby, i am ashamed to say. the reason i was tempted to do it was because i live in the middle of nowhere, miles away from my friends (who to my horror have turned away from pokemon, a betrayal i felt deeply), have never been able to go to any events and am unable to afford both versions of the games. due to these, i an unable to complete the games as i cannot complete the pokedex fully. i had become depressed by the fact that i could not finnish the game and had decided that i had had enough of being forced to fail. so i bought a cheat pack and suddenly could complete the pokedex and the game, complete with the event only pokemon. but the feeling of completion and satisfaction was not there. i had cheated to finnish a game and now it was finnished, i felt empty.
i just wanted you to know how a cheater feels and to discourage any who are thinking about cheating.
cheating only makes your spelling and grammer worse and prevents you from using capital letters.
darkky @ 20/06/2007, 11:23:30 pm
dragon master is funny…
now seriously folks
due to the inheirent nature of the pokemon genre, whose catch phrase is "catch em all", millions of little fans run around a spend hundreds of hours to do just that. thousands of other simply slip the card into a 're-coding' pack and achieve this in about five. the difference in the game? nothing. one has all the pokemon, the other has all the pokemon. the difference in the real world? the sharker is left bored, unamused, and dissatisfied with the game. the person who spent all that time, painstakingly raising a magikarp to lvl 20 (or beyond), not to mention catching the rest of the pokemon, can go to his friends, if they have any, and say look, isnt this cool. isnt this guy powerful? this one sucked to raise, this one is weak. yeah, hackers do what they do, and the have fun while doing it. but id rather have fun for a few weeks, instead of fun for a day. it doesnt matter if hacked pokemon go up for grabs. i still have to trade for them. i still have to work my ass off looking for someone on the GTS. in the end, i get them, and i worked for it. the base question here is simply, "which is more fun for me? do i want pokemon now? or in a few days? do i want to raise my freshly hatched dratini using exp share, or do i want to speed up the process and button mash for a half hour with rare candies?"
which sounds more fun to you?
Darkrai666 @ 21/06/2007, 03:39:37 am
I admit i have cheated in pokemon pearl version.i have used the pokemon emulatr to catch pokemon u can't get in the pearl version ( like having charzard,mewtwo, ho-ho, deoxy etc)but i never trade online or play online, unless i'm playing with a friend who i know personally and knows how i got those pokemon so i don't think it would be fair 2 stop being able 2 use things like gameshark and Action replay which i use just for kicks, not 2 have an unfair advantage online.
Sammy @ 27/06/2007, 11:26:17 pm
not to be ignorant, but does anyone know why the pokemon i created using Pokesav will not be accepted into Pokemon Battle Revolution?
MegaVelocibot @ 10/07/2007, 11:20:28 pm
@ Sammy:
Hmm. Perhaps because you did a poor job of creating it, the game knows you're cheating?
Mike @ 13/07/2007, 11:14:29 pm
You know, you guys might be taking this a little off. I hate cheaters to hell, and you can bash me at this but I own action replay for a few things. Now as a person who hates cheaters on countless times, I follow a few rules to myself. I also have pokemon, and here's what i'm not doing.
1: I'm not hacking IV's, EV's or stats, I don't even know what IV's or EV's are and how you can tell you have them.
Alright so with that, some of you think that all hacked pokemon should be removed somehow, detected by the in game code. Why? Hear me out, please.
Every single pokemon exists in the Diamond and Pearl code right? It's there, every item is there, it exists, it's obtainable, now how you obtain it works differently. As you guys say, *legit* Some codes should be allowed, like catching all the pokemon. Lets just say Dialga, I want him, I don't feel like trading but I do want it to battle, so I'll hack it in my game. It exists in the code, I just cant get it because I have pearl. So I hack it, fight it, get it. It's stats are the same as a legit, maybe a few levels lower or higher. It's attacks are the same, everything is the same! Now why should that be banned? Why should shining pokemon be banned? They sparkle, WHOOP DI DOO! YAY! Okay, but they don't change a single thing in battle, they don't have a single stat different or ability. They are there so people spend more time playing the game, so what if people hack them just to find them easier.
Take shinings for example, 1 in 8000 chance of getting it right? So a code makes it 1 in 1. Big deal, it's just a different color pokemon gotten easily. So what should be banned? Pokemon that don't die with infinite health, stats only go so high with each pokemon, if you could detect impossable stats and unfair advantages, THAT SHOULD BE BANNED. Not because someone got the national pokedex. Not because someone got all 493 things in an hour, not because they sparkle. But because they're unfair, what's unfair with the afore mentioned things? Absolutely nothing.
Now some people say, but their not official, they're not real. I'm sorry to say, that they're all real. If you got a pokemon from an event, there is nothing different to one brought into the game. That's basically what events are anyway, that's the official people changing your games code so you get whatever item, think about it. You go to an event and get something, lets say the Azure Flute key item. Key item, they can't send it to you, they use the mystery gift or put it in your copy of the game, thus changing the code. Some hacking should be banned, but some hacking is practically the same thing as getting it *legitly* Wouldn't you agree?
Joe @ 18/07/2007, 08:04:40 pm
wow. nice post and i totally agree with you. I for one have no problems like you said "hacking" to get such pokemon. Being that i work a full time job and have a social life i dont really have the time to go through emerald or something like that the can the pokemon i want so i can transfer them over. To be able to hack them and then catch them saves me a ton of time. Like mike said. I dont have IV or whatever the hell those things are (still cant figure it out) i just use a AR to get the pokemon i want.
Zeromus @ 27/07/2007, 05:41:43 am
Good point mike, agreed, the clone glitch? not a big deal, it'll always happen. And i sure as hell am not going across the world to get myself a event pokemon, hell no, and many people wont. SO its either find someone who has it and mystery gift them, or put in a cheat or get a cheated one so that you can get it without the event.
Browzilla @ 03/05/2007, 03:27:09 am
I agree entirely. I've been lurking on the Serebii irc channel recently, and literally, every third person is asking for a Darkrai, Shayamin, or Arceus. Because apparently events pokemon are too hard to get otherwise. Which explains why I have legal Deoxys, Mew, Jirachi, and Ho-oh.
And what's worse, those who don't want to use illegitimate Pokemon hack the items instead so they can actually catch it and then they call it legitimate. A hack is still a hack. And it's obvious it's not legit. It's not like there's any legitimate US event Pokemon yet. And, as far as I know, all the JP ones are from the E4 glitch. Which is slightly better, but still, I'd rather wait for the event.