Battle Factory Beta, in retrospect.

The First Box, dated 14/4/2012

Project: Battle Factory: Singles
Project Leader: Justin Lok.
Resources and Advising: Ryan Loh.
Summary: Distribute a whole bunch of Pokemon from a set box among 10 or so people, and observe the member's reaction to a previously unreleased box of Pokemon, and see how they build with the tools they are given. Participants are supposed to force a trade, with the winner being able to choose the Pokemon to be traded.

Notes:
1)Ry's box was imbalanced.
From one glance, you can tell how imbalanced this box is. xD We have stuff that really really tanks in Singles format, we have DOUBLES things(not me, blame Justin.), we have outdated sets(hello Tyraniboah).
The item choices were not optimised. We have good stuff, we have bad stuff. My boxes were chosen because I have an immense library of competitively ready Pokemon from since my 4th Generation career. As start April 2012, I have a total of 140 Competitively ready Pokemon across the board. SO, Justin was in charge of selecting from those 120:)

2)"What the hell is this Gliscor, Ry?!"
I quote Su on this. xD Gliscor was a baton pass set!

Things we could improve on:
1)Selection.
Admittedly, one thing that tanked badly was that the selection was a TAD imbalanced. This was INTENTIONAL. We were trying to observe how people perceive valuable Pokemon. Which Pokemon got picked up FIRST.
Since the participants in Battle Factory Beta were close friends of Justin and Ry, you do notice the subtle differences. People chose Pokemon they have seen me use before, be it effectively or experimentally. Of course, there were little things like Sugi forgetting the Registeel(I USED IT WHEN WE WERE STILL AT THE CATHAY E2MAX.:D)

2)Distribution.
It's Battle Factory. The whole POINT of Battle Factory was the player's ability to make use of Pokemon based on their knowledge of a Pokemon's possible usage.
Problem: Setup. The amount of time it takes to distribute the Pokemon and collect them back has been the biggest problem Justin and I had, ever since the conception of the idea. When he initially approached me, this was the conversation that went between us:

Justin: Battle Factory.

Ry: Impractical. Distributing is a bitch, collecting even more so.

Justin:...True.

Hell, without his drive an insistence that this idea would take off, I would have to admit sheepishly, I thought it wouldn't work.

With 10 participants, distribution took half an hour, a lot faster than my projected. It takes cooperation from the participants, of course. For now, I think that we have overcome that stumbling block. With enough preparation beforehand, distribution isn't too much of a problem.


So now what?


Was Battle Factory a success? I like to believe so, we were met with a tad underwhelming response, but we can't wait for the official release.

Thanks for attending! :)

-Ry