{"id":803,"date":"2014-03-27T15:23:49","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T15:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlecharbinger.wordpress.com\/2014\/03\/27\/twitch-plays-pokemon-possible-or-not-possible-by-daniel-saiz\/"},"modified":"2014-03-27T15:23:49","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T15:23:49","slug":"twitch-plays-pokemon-possible-or-not-possible-by-daniel-saiz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mlecharbinger.org\/?p=803","title":{"rendered":"Twitch Plays Pokemon: Possible or Not Possible? by Daniel Saiz"},"content":{"rendered":"

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One question baffled everybody who signed in to watch Twitch Plays Pok\u00e9mon: how is it possible for 80,000 people to not only play Pok\u00e9mon, but to control the only playable character?<\/p>\n

\u201cApparently it is possible, as they beat the game. It just shows that if you get enough idiots messing around together, eventually someone intelligent will get the job done,\u201d said Brianna (Bree) Leonard, a freshman at Kent State University.<\/p>\n

Dubbed a \u201csocial experiment,\u201d the stream went live on February 13, 2014 and attracted viewers since the flood of controls humorously made it extremely difficult to do simple things, such as walking out of a house, or even walk in the right direction.<\/p>\n

The stream involved the original Pokemon Red\/Blue for the Nintendo Gameboy. The first four days were some of the funniest and the heartiest, as the stream not only had normal players controlling it, but several thousand \u201ctrolls\u201d that would put in the wrong actions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0And as Twitch Plays Pok\u00e9mon began getting quite a few thousand views on the first few days, it gradually moved towards a total view of over 38 million people.<\/p>\n

It did not take long for the \u201csocial\u201d part of the experiment to come out, and soon after accidentally \u201cconsulting\u201d the Helix fossil, an item obtained in the game which later becomes a Pok\u00e9mon, several followers created a \u201creligion\u201d revolving around it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely is possible for 80,000 people to play the game, as was evidenced by the stream, where they were able to complete most of the game within a reasonable playtime. Even though the system allowed for sabotaging and deviation from the tasks, the combined efforts and same goal of these people led them to finish.\u201d said Luis Arreaga, a senior in the Cambridge Academy.<\/p>\n

The Helix Fossil, dubbed as God, would be consulted about anything the characters would do, and its trusty followers, aaabaaajss<\/a> the Pidgeot (or Bird Jesus) and ABBBBBBK the Charmeleon, would fight in its name. Later, in an attempt to change the members of their team, the players accidentally released their two strongest Pok\u00e9mon as well as ten others, and named the day \u201cBloody Sunday\u201d in remembrance of their major loss.<\/p>\n

The stream\u2019s creator, whose identity is still unknown, made certain features to decrease the amount of \u201ctrolling\u201d which helped with coordination.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe “start” command was disabled after people started spamming it into the chat, and the game now has “Anarchy” and “Democracy” modes that players can select via a virtual voice vote. “Anarchy” is essentially the experiment’s original form, in which everyone’s command is applied immediately.<\/p>\n

In “Democracy,” players are allowed to vote on their character’s next move. It takes a vote from 75% of the players to switch modes, though. And you can imagine how easy that is,\u201d wrote Larry Frum, from CNN. \u00a0This made it easier for players to decide on specific controls, which helped in certain parts of the game, i.e. Team Rocket Hideout.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Anarchy system showed that if a multitude of people really meant to do a task, it can be carried out even if it is chaotic on the way. Democracy, on the other hand, would be expected to lead to better results, but fails when there are so many different options to take,\u201d said Arreaga.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t really have any plans for it from the beginning,” the creator said in an e-mail to gaming site Polygon. “I just wanted to put it up to see how people would respond. I put it together and put it up on a dedicated server all within a few days.”<\/p>\n

After playing for 16 days 7 hours 50 minutes and 40 seconds, a team of over 80,000 people successfully beat the game on Saturday, March 1st after their fifth attempt at beating the Elite Four. The stream is going to continue with the next generation, Pokemon Crystal, but will take a larger amount of time to complete, considering that the game play is lengthier. The creator says that as long as there is interest in the stream, he\u2019ll continue hosting other generations.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One question baffled everybody who signed in to watch Twitch Plays Pok\u00e9mon: how is it possible for 80,000 people to not only play Pok\u00e9mon, but to control the only playable character?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[1050,1437,3130,4220],"class_list":["post-803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-features","tag-daniel-saiz","tag-feature","tag-pokemon","tag-twitch-plays-pokemon"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t