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the first twitch plays pokemon was wild because nobody knew if beating the game was at all possible, and if it were, nobody knew how much time it would take no

the first twitch plays pokemon was wild because nobody knew if beating the game was at all possible, and if it were, nobody knew how much time it would take note that TPP inputs resemble random inputs but aren't! The game is made easier because people could and did collaborate through the chat, and simultaneously made harder because griefers could and did attempt to sabotage the game the only thing that made progress possible imo was that there is no game over screen, and at death you dont lose anything too important; however there was a clear "winning" ending screen (pokemon is a game where you can win but you can not lose), so the collaborative effort to win the game was at an advantage random inputs put a bound on the expected time it takes to beat the game, but the time is astronomical. the game was beaten much much sooner than this theoretical bound, which means that collaboration eventually won out. this only happened imo due to social effects: if griefers were more determined and more numerous, perhaps the first iteration would be still ongoing after the first, it kind of became much easier, because people already knew it was possible in principle

Freedom2 3y ago
> nobody knew if beating the game was at all possible A few people including myself knew. Eventually entropy would settle and once the initial hype was over, it was only a matter of time before the chat would finish the game. Saying that "nobody knew" seems like historical revisionism.
- CaptainNegative 3y ago
  If it were just up to randomness with an unmodified ROM, then (barring a glitch) they would have soft locked at the Safari Zone which costs some currency to enter and needs to be traversed to the Surf HM in a relatively tight number of moves. There's only a finite amount of money in the game, so they can only fail at most a few hundred times before the game becomes impossible to beat.
  - Andrex 3y ago
    > There's only a finite amount of money in the game Technically untrue, you can use Meowth's Pay Day to generate cash. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pay_Day_(move)#Generation_I https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pay_Day_(move)#Gener...
    - merb 3y ago
      Meowth was only available in Pokémon blue. Once you get to the top 4 and can beat them money is infinite, but in red you theoretically can fail at the safari zone.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- charcircuit 3y ago
  As a part of it I think most people believed that it was possible. There were strategy docs and images constantly being linked constantly in chat and it was clear the incremental progress was being made.
totetsu 3y ago
I recall the way controls were interpreted from the chat was changed a few times to get past it being too random. At some point a voting window was made and the most common command from the last n was accepted
- lagt_t 3y ago
  Anarchy vs democracy. Good times.
  - totetsu 3y ago
    > Anarchy and Democracy TwitchPlaysPokemon now has two modes, anarchy and democracy. Anarchy mode is the "old" mode, where everyone's inputs are applied immediately. Democracy mode is vote-based and has a more sophisticated input system. In order to switch from one mode to the other, the mode that isn't active needs 75% of votes as indicated by the dotted line, the current percentage of votes is indicated by the black line. I wonder if this kind of thing could be implemented into a Reinforcement Learning model.. Like Playing pokem via Playing Twitch plays pokemon with Reinforcement Learning. I'm thinking of how a house fly can or .. sheep .. can suddenly just go nuts and bounce about to get unstuck from somewhere.
    - darepublic 3y ago
      > I'm thinking of how a house fly can or .. sheep .. can suddenly just go nuts and bounce about to get unstuck People do this too!
gwern 3y ago
> pokemon is a game where you can win but you can not lose As I recall, there are several ways you can lock yourself out of being able to complete the game (releasing unique pokemons, primarily), so there was a good deal of trepidation & danger when it came to some critical moments and when the trolls got the upper hand.
- bgirard 3y ago
  Vaguely remembering from having played the game 25 years ago, I think you can maybe release all pokemons with cut and be locked?
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    HM moves like cut cannot be deleted, and if released those Pokemon immediately return if the game detects they're the last one You can't get softlocked by releasing an HM move Pokemon.
  - themoonisachees 3y ago
    It's a tad harder than that. "Common" softlocks generally put you in the elite 4 rooms, with 1 pokemon that is underleveled and knows splash, with all others released. These elite 4 rooms are generally the only rooms that you can enter but not leave (except by beating the trainer or losing), and then you create additionnal constraint to prevent a combat loss from freeing you, like purposefully not picking up a lot of optional items that would make it easier to bounce back.
- korla 3y ago
  You are correct, there are ways to do so. There are also soft-locks which are states which are just incredibly hard to get out of (heat death of the universe type scenarios some times). Pikasprey yellow is one youtuber who chronicles things in that area. But I think the commenter above meant that Pokémon was a game which was possible to complete in a twitch plays style because it doesn't result in game over like an FPS or platform we would for example.
jimmydorry 3y ago
The rules were changed on the fly too. Adding a "democracy mode" where inputs are suspended and a majority rule per action, made many parts significantly easier (or perhaps even taking the difficulty from impossible to possible).

Freedom2 3y ago

> nobody knew if beating the game was at all possible A few people including myself knew. Eventually entropy would settle and once the initial hype was over, it was only a matter of time before the chat would finish the game. Saying that "nobody knew" seems like historical revisionism.

CaptainNegative 3y ago
If it were just up to randomness with an unmodified ROM, then (barring a glitch) they would have soft locked at the Safari Zone which costs some currency to enter and needs to be traversed to the Surf HM in a relatively tight number of moves. There's only a finite amount of money in the game, so they can only fail at most a few hundred times before the game becomes impossible to beat.
- Andrex 3y ago
  > There's only a finite amount of money in the game Technically untrue, you can use Meowth's Pay Day to generate cash. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pay_Day_(move)#Generation_I https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pay_Day_(move)#Gener...
  - merb 3y ago
    Meowth was only available in Pokémon blue. Once you get to the top 4 and can beat them money is infinite, but in red you theoretically can fail at the safari zone.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
charcircuit 3y ago
As a part of it I think most people believed that it was possible. There were strategy docs and images constantly being linked constantly in chat and it was clear the incremental progress was being made.

totetsu 3y ago

I recall the way controls were interpreted from the chat was changed a few times to get past it being too random. At some point a voting window was made and the most common command from the last n was accepted

lagt_t 3y ago
Anarchy vs democracy. Good times.
- totetsu 3y ago
  > Anarchy and Democracy TwitchPlaysPokemon now has two modes, anarchy and democracy. Anarchy mode is the "old" mode, where everyone's inputs are applied immediately. Democracy mode is vote-based and has a more sophisticated input system. In order to switch from one mode to the other, the mode that isn't active needs 75% of votes as indicated by the dotted line, the current percentage of votes is indicated by the black line. I wonder if this kind of thing could be implemented into a Reinforcement Learning model.. Like Playing pokem via Playing Twitch plays pokemon with Reinforcement Learning. I'm thinking of how a house fly can or .. sheep .. can suddenly just go nuts and bounce about to get unstuck from somewhere.
  - darepublic 3y ago
    > I'm thinking of how a house fly can or .. sheep .. can suddenly just go nuts and bounce about to get unstuck People do this too!

gwern 3y ago

> pokemon is a game where you can win but you can not lose As I recall, there are several ways you can lock yourself out of being able to complete the game (releasing unique pokemons, primarily), so there was a good deal of trepidation & danger when it came to some critical moments and when the trolls got the upper hand.

bgirard 3y ago
Vaguely remembering from having played the game 25 years ago, I think you can maybe release all pokemons with cut and be locked?
- dragontamer 3y ago
  HM moves like cut cannot be deleted, and if released those Pokemon immediately return if the game detects they're the last one You can't get softlocked by releasing an HM move Pokemon.
- themoonisachees 3y ago
  It's a tad harder than that. "Common" softlocks generally put you in the elite 4 rooms, with 1 pokemon that is underleveled and knows splash, with all others released. These elite 4 rooms are generally the only rooms that you can enter but not leave (except by beating the trainer or losing), and then you create additionnal constraint to prevent a combat loss from freeing you, like purposefully not picking up a lot of optional items that would make it easier to bounce back.
korla 3y ago
You are correct, there are ways to do so. There are also soft-locks which are states which are just incredibly hard to get out of (heat death of the universe type scenarios some times). Pikasprey yellow is one youtuber who chronicles things in that area. But I think the commenter above meant that Pokémon was a game which was possible to complete in a twitch plays style because it doesn't result in game over like an FPS or platform we would for example.

jimmydorry 3y ago

The rules were changed on the fly too. Adding a "democracy mode" where inputs are suspended and a majority rule per action, made many parts significantly easier (or perhaps even taking the difficulty from impossible to possible).