With every switch to a new generation, changes in the suggestion rules are necessary. This time this was needed more than ever, considering the enormous backlog we faced, and are still facing. Thus, the Staff agreed on the following rules that should be kept in mind by all members when suggesting pokémon.
We are sure these new rules will make backlogs a thing of the past. We are posting them early, so you can get used to them and/or prepare your upcoming suggestions.
Without further delay, here are the rules as they appear in the edited "How to Suggest a Pokémon" topic in the new "The Rules: Read These First!" forum.
1. Limit – Suggest A Pokémon Forum
You are allowed to suggest up to two evolution lines at a time in the Suggest A Pokémon forum. Whether an evolution line consists of just one or multiple stages is not of importance; the limit is two lines.
Please make separate topics per suggestion, so we can keep track of the amount of topics you have. Once one of your evolution lines has been reviewed and approved, we will close its topic. Once the topic is closed, you are allowed to suggest a new evolution line in a new topic.
Please note:
All active members are required to re-suggest their old ideas from the "Suggest A Pokémon Archives" forum and re-submit them according to the new DP-style format. We will look at topics from members that are gone every once in a while, so that old ideas that were already completed will still get approved.
2. Limit – Community Works
You are allowed to suggest one idea in the Community Works forum. Once your idea has been completed by joint effort and has been reviewed and approved, we will close its topic. Once the topic is closed, you are allowed to suggest a new evolution line in a new topic.
Topics that you had posted before the board closed do not count towards your limit.
3. Feedback From Fellow Members
We'd like to stress that all feedback and comments from anyone are welcome, but that the suggestor doesn't necessarily have to agree with them. The Staff has the final say, so it might be wise not to go and make edits to your suggestion right away just because another member has commented on your suggestion.
4. Required Info When Suggesting
You are required to provide us with the following information when suggesting Pokémon to the Pokémon Factory:
Name (maximum length: 10) Please include the source of the Pokémon's name; for example, Onix is a corruption of ONYX, the black mineral; Paras is shortened from PARASite; and Magcargo is MAGma + esCARGO (French for snail).
Pokédex Type (maximum length: 11) For example, Weepinbell is listed as a FLYCATCHER Pokémon.
Height, Weight These should be in feet/inches and pounds. If you provide metric information we will convert it for you. If you don't know what dimensions your Pokémon should have, look at the dimensions of existing Pokémon for comparison.
Element Type The Pokémon Factory tries to maintain a decent mix of types, and will actually ban certain types from being made if the archive becomes too unbalanced, so this is important. Remember, no Pokémon can have more than two types. Also, there is no such thing as a pure Flying-type, and combination-Normal-types other than Flying should have a good reason to be partly Normal-type (such as Girafarig's half-and-half nature). Feel free to use PF's unofficial Magic, Light and Wind-types (explained on the site), but we are not interested in any other new types.
Description This should be detailed enough for a Pokémon Factory artist to draw a correct picture of it. If you have a picture of it uploaded, you may display that instead of a text description. If your idea has feet, it would also help to describe its footprint briefly.
Pokédex Data The information about your Pokémon and its behavior. The Pokédex Data consists of two lines of between 85 and 100 characters each; you have some leeway, but try not to stray too far from this guideline. The two lines should be independent from each other; so no follow-ups between lines.
Evolution If your Pokémon evolves, or has evolved, you need to provide the method of evolution, with all necessary details (i.e. if it evolves at a level, name the level, and so on.) It doesn't have to evolve, but you can't have it evolve and then not say how.
Special Ability Each Pokémon species has a Special Ability; some have two, though each individual Pokémon only gets to choose one of the two. Check out the list available on our site, and select one (or two) for your species.
Moves What attacks or defensive moves does your Pokémon learn? Maybe it learns moves that don't appear in the games! If you choose to create a new move, we will review it along with your Pokémon. Your Pokémon won't be rejected because of a bad move, but we might reject the move itself.
5. Optional Info When Suggesting
You are free to come up with the following information for your Pokémon too, but this information is not required. If you do not come up with these aspects, we will do so instead. If you do, they are taken along in the reviewing process.
Gender Ratio Now that a Pokémon species' gender differences are shown in their sprites, it might be nice to include how many of your species are male or female. This number tends to mostly be 50/50, but sometimes the male or the female gender is more common. If you don't include a gender ratio, the Staff will assign a ratio instead.
Gender Differences If you want your suggestion to feature a gender difference in its sprite, it might be a good idea to give us a general description of the difference between male and female species of your Pokémon. If your suggested gender difference makes sense and is workable in a sprite, we will try to incorporate it when your suggestion gets dexed; we cannot fully guarantee implementation of your suggestion in advance, though.
Egg Group All Pokémon are divided into groups of similar Pokémon which are able to breed with each other. Although these groups might not always make sense (considering that Wailord and Skitty can mate), you might want to include it along with your suggestion. Be aware that the Pokémon Factory has changed some of the names of the Egg Groups. They are all found on the site. If you don't include Egg Groups, the Staff will assign them instead.
Habitat You might want to include some information regarding in which type of natural habitat your suggestion can be found in the wild. It might be found near a river, near a volcano, in a desert, etc. If you include a general idea of your suggestion's habitat, we will take it into account when adding your pokémon to the Placings List.
Stats It's a good idea to offer some idea of what your Pokémon's stats are like. Is it fast or slow? Physically buff or a stripling? Some people go beyond "some idea", though, providing actual numbers for each stat. These are the "Base Values" from which stats at any given level are calculated; for example, Caterpie has a Base Attack of 30, Sandshrew has a Base Defense of 85, Mewtwo has a Base Special Attack of 154, and Mew has straight 100s in all six stats.
Egg Moves, and the HMs, TMs and Move Tutors your Pokémon can learn, will be chosen by the Staff.
6. New Abilities
Sometimes you might feel that the concept of your species requires a new ability. In that case, you are allowed to suggest a new ability along with the Pokémon you're suggesting. Your Pokémon won't be rejected because of a bad ability, but we might reject the new ability itself.
7. New Evolution Inducing Items
Sometimes you might feel that the concept of your species requires a new item with which it evolves. In that case, you are allowed to suggest a new item along with the Pokémon you're suggesting. Your Pokémon won't be rejected because of a bad item and evolution method, but we might reject the new item itself.
8. New Moves
As said before, we will review new moves along with the Pokémon you're suggesting. Your Pokémon won't be rejected because of a bad move, but we might reject the move itself.
When creating a new move, please provide the following information:
Name Please try to give it a name that makes sense and that isn't too similar to the name of an existing move (which includes the ones already approved by the Pokémon Factory.) There is a limit of twelve characters to a move name; this includes spaces and any other characters, such as the 2 in CONVERSION2 or the dash in MUD-SLAP.
Effect Be specific, provide us with Power, PP and Accuracy. The new moves page at the Pokmon Factory lists exact numbers for attack strength and for the chance of a side effect; if you do not provide this, then guesses will be made, and it is up to you to give enough detail so that a guess should be fairly accurate. For example, don't just say "really strong". HYPER BEAM and EXPLOSION are both "really strong", but one is almost twice as strong as the other.
Strength New moves should probably not be stronger than HYPER BEAM, and definitely should not be stronger than EXPLOSION. If it's in that range, or is a one-hit KO, there should also be a downside to using it, such as HYPER BEAM's loss of the next turn, the horrible accuracy of all one-hit KOs or EXPLOSION's...well, we all know what EXPLOSION does.
Existing moves Consider carefully the effect of your move. If it does the same thing, or very close to the same thing, as an existing move, there should be a good reason for the additional move, such as Exeggcute learning BARRAGE because they don't have the limbs to learn FURY ATTACK (which is identical to BARRAGE in all but name).
Please note:
The Pokémon Factory feels that the number of new moves we currently have is sufficient. Too many of them have no Pokémon that learn them. For this reason, new moves can no longer be suggested separately. This means that the "Suggest A New Move" forum will remain closed.
9. Evos and Pre-evos
More than before, we will apply very high quality standards on evolutions or pre-evolved forms of Nintendo's Pokémon and of existing Pokémon Factory Pokémon. You need to flesh out your idea as good as possible, and stay fully true to the concept behind the Pokémon that you are giving a relative, in order to make your suggestion approvable. To name an example that we've seen suggested to us multiple times: a Ghost/Fire alternate evolution of Haunter will not be approved, since the Gastly line has never been about Fire, and never will be. Give your evolution or pre-evolved form a good and long thought before suggesting it.
10. SEs and Gag Pokémon
Both Special Edition Pokémon and Gag Pokémon can only be suggested by Staff Members. We will do so once in a while, and if one appears on the site, we will make a news post about it on the site.
The most important changes you will notice are the new suggestion limits. By imposing these limits, we will make sure that backlogs do not arise immediately after reopening, and there is the added advantage that you no longer have to wait for the completion of five archive pages before your suggestion shows up on the site ;-)
Something else you will notice is that you are required to bring back your old suggestions that were still lingering in the Suggest A Pokémon forum and re-submit them with these new DPPt-style rules in mind. Of course, you are free to ignore ideas that you don't want to re-submit. Topics with fairly complete suggestions from members that are gone, on the other hand, will still get reviewed, but they are not a priority, so we will do so every once in a while.
Another change is that Gag pokémon will from now on be treated as Special Edition pokémon: they can only be suggested by the Staff. This decision was made because we feel that, with the latest batch of gag dexes, most concepts for a good gag pokémon have already been done. To maintain the quality of the gags, a new dex will only be made every once in a while.
Furthermore, we have included more optional info you can include along with your suggestion. If you're having fun with providing detailed information, such as gender ratios egg groups or gender differences, we will try to incorporate those as far as possible.
Along with these new rules, you might have already noticed that we updated the forums to include these changes. We now have a forum category called "Suggestions Archives". In it old move suggestions, suggested gag pokémon and old suggestions are included. As soon as the board reopens, we will of course create a new "Suggest A Pokémon" forum for you to post your two topics in.
