How to make Pokemon better

So I was just thinking about how the Pokemon games could be better. They won't ever change because as is they make a shit ton of money, but we've all thought about how they could be better.

The first thing they need to drop is encouraging to catch them all. Only a few crazies do that and it just creates a lot of aggravation for the rest of us. It doesn't help that there are now ten billion different pokemon, or that about three dozen a game are duplicates of pokemon from previous games. Every game has a new rodent pokemon and a new bird pokemon and a new pair of completely useless bug pokemon. We don't need new pokemon like that. Make new cool pokemon, but once again, not epic pokemon. We don't need the new Zapdos.

While we are on this topic lets add that you can't capture unique or mythological pokemon. No capturing Mew, MewTwo, Zapdos, Moltres, etc. How do you prevent this? Don't have them show up. People talk about them but you never see them. For one I expect that people would murder you if you tried to used ones of those pokemon in battle since they are considered to be gods in the pokemon world. Secondly, they wouldn't be trainable. Normal pokemon are the same intelligence as humans, Myth pokemon are smarter and nothing you say to them is going to get them to battle for you.

Next I want to change moves. I want more then four of them. I think we can all agree on this. Also in wild pokemon battles I want to be able to use as many pokemon at a time as I want. I also want to be attacked by herds/flocks of pokemon at once. I can't imagine that pikachus are going to just attack you one at a time, if they do they deserve to be used as biological batteries. And aren't there also Plusun and Minum (Yes I know I misspelled it) who are pokemon that have moves that only work with the other one nearby? Why would they ever attack without their friend?

Now to some story stuff. Age up the characters to fifteen. I keep thinking that their supposed to get their pokemon license at age ten and not leave their homes on their own until they are older. This is a Japanese thing that you see a lot of in their literature, little kids doing things that adults would fail at.  Don't make the Gyms the main point of the story. Give the option of joining team rocket. Create training methods that are effected by type and personaty. Give us the option of beating our pokemon when they misbehave. I'd also like to order my pokemon to attack trainers. Officer Jenny finds out you get in trouble and you can't in Gym battles but so what?

Okay, maybe we are asking for more then a gameboy can handle. We have no choice but to move to a full console device. The Wii, I guess, since Nintendo makes Pokemon games. Of course it would make an interesting MMORPG, with all my adjustments which would require a real computer and might make Nintendo cry.

Of course this is only a handful of things they could do to make it better. I could go into detail but I'm bored with this now, so I won't.

Thinking bigger

I'm reading an article about someone starting a comic book shop after they created a convention in Florida. Yeah, it makes total sense and is not at all confusing.

The article is saying how the number of comic book shops has dropped in recent years comparing it to Borders closing. I have several problems with this.

Start with Borders. I never cared for their selection. Most people that like bookstores don't like major chains and if they go to a chain they want it to have the book they are looking for. I prefer Barnes & Noble, they just feel nicer. It might help that most BNs have a coffee shop built in and some of the ones near me have a permanent speaker/book signing area. They come off as more of a community gathering area then Borders did. Borders is just a large store that sold books.

Another thing with Borders. I went to our local Borders yesterday to get some clearance books. Everything was 30% off, except for Romance, which was 40% off. They were so overstocked with Romance it wasn't even funny. They had extra sections of Romance set up and had it spilling into other sections. That is why they are going out of business, they don't have books people want to read. I also looked over at the Young Adult section to see what they had left. It was three ten foot long shelves. Harry Potter books go in that section and I think they didn't have room for them. Young Adult is not a small area of book sales, it's very popular. For one I see a lot of people writing it for Nanowrimo.

Don't worry about faux Twilight novels though, they were safely in the Romance section.

Now the comic books shops. I didn't grow up with them. Any of them. The closest was forty-five minutes away in a direction I rarely went (or an hour and a half the other direction). Yes, traditional book stores are now carrying some comic books, but they didn't when I was little, and the chance that they had something that would interest me was incredibly rare. No one I knew in high school was particularly interested in comic books because of this, which is a shame.

What do comic book shops need to do? They need to be more then just a specialized book store. They need to be a community center. When I finally did get out to the one forty-five minutes away I was astounded by the place. For one it was huge, the size of a big box bookstore, but half of it was tables. To place games on. Dungeons and Dragons, Magic the Gathering, Apples to Apples, Solitaire, Chess, GURPS. This are things that require people to come to you, it makes it a community meeting place. Added benefit that they will probably purchase extra cards or dice or expansion packs while they are in the store, which means more money. And when I say they had table I mean twenty tables that could sit eight. They knew they were the only thing for miles and they were prepared for it.

And it works in a bad economy too! They might not buy as much but they will still be there to see the merchandise. They might buy less expensive things but at least you have them in the store.

And I'm not the only one with the community center idea. Libraries are trying to switch from a loan books business plan to a help people with simple tasks.

I suck at closing arguments.