Talk:List of locations by index number

So the Gen IV one... definitely doable with Pokésav, I'd imagine. Anyone wanna? TTEchidna 06:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

It's done and it took and very long time. It also shows that we lack a few pages. tc26 13:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Needs a rename, somewhere

There are 2 completely different kinds of location index numbers: "map index numbers" and "met location index numbers". Our current articles mix them up. Map index numbers are different for every map in the game (e.g. Pallet Town has 5 maps, outdoors and 4 building floors). Met locations are much fewer in number (e.g. Pallet Town is a single met location).

Met location index numbers only exist from Crystal onward. Map index numbers obviously exist in every game, but it might make for a very bloated, boring article. We currently use map index numbers for Gen 1 and then abruptly switch to met location index numbers for Gen 2+.

If there are no objections, I will get around to making renames eventually. The downside is that there will be a ton of redlinks, as I doubt anyone wants to check every room of every building in a save editor anytime soon. Blueapple128 (talk) 07:22, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Why would there be redlinks? Do you mean that "list of locations by map index number (Generation VII)" etc. are not articles that anyone will bother to create?

If so, I'd like to note that I'm not sure if "locations by map index number" makes for a super notable article (when there are met location index numbers), the value it has should be minimal.

I'd be fine if the Gen I article was renamed (or maybe not even that, and only gets an explainer at the top of the article, not sure), and the others were left as is. Nescientist (talk) 10:25, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that map index articles would have minimal value (they'd be very useful for glitch exploration, RAM and ROM editing, etc.) but that's most likely for places other than Bulbapedia.

Strongly disagree with the "no rename" idea though, as the two things are fundamentally different concepts. One is part of Pokemon data and one is part of the player's save data; there are 5 Pallet Town map indices but only 1 Pallet Town met location in (say) FRLG. It also feels "weird" to have a map index article for Gen 1 only, as that would just be a relic of the previous mix-up and would also wrongly imply that map indices only exist in Gen 1 and/or it would be hard to explain the situation in an encyclopedic way. I would go all the way as far as suggesting that the Gen 1 map index article be moved out of the mainspace entirely, whether to a different space or to a different wiki. Blueapple128 (talk) 11:38, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I'll be trying to explain my thinking a bit.

So.. Ideally, all those things should be documented here imo. (But we're both realists.) And then I'm not a big fan of moving info out of the mainspace, even when its scope/significance is minimal, it's still relevant information.

As for the rename thing, what I usually do is take a step back (or two) and try to look at it from a reader perspective (not the nitty-gritty detail tech kinda person that I might be). And from there, I would (could) just go basically "Hey guys, for Generation I, for our locations-by-index-number article, this time around we need to resort to another kind of list, cause that good structured list we're usually using didn't start until Gen II".

Of course it's different lists, from entirely different contexts, and if one of the lists becomes extremely relevant somehow (a new glitch?), they would absolutely need be separated and put into context. But.. at face value, right now, both are also just "lists of locations by index number". When I'm being most pragmatic, that would do. (Of course, anything better you have, go for it by all means.) Nescientist (talk) 11:31, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

After digging through some of the pokered and pokecrystal disassemblies, I believe I've found a resolution:

The thing I've been calling "met locations" applies to more than just Pokemon summary screens and the Poke Seer in Crystal. It also applies to location pop-ups (when the player enters a new location) and the Town Map. So both Gen II and Gen I already have a mechanism for taking a large pile of maps (e.g. the 5 maps of Pallet Town) and condensing them down to one "thing" just named "Pallet Town". (For example, opening the Town Map from Oak's Lab displays "Pallet Town", and if you could obtain a Pokemon inside the lab in Crystal, the Poke Seer would also say its met location was "Pallet Town".) In other words, in Crystal, the list of possible met locations and the list of possible Town Map entries are the same list. Gen I doesn't have met locations, but it still has Town Map entries. The list will be 53 rows long (instead of 256) and this would resolve the current problem of "only Gen 1 seems to have five Pallet Town locations while Gens 2-4 only have one but they really also each have five". Currently editing. Blueapple128 (talk) 10:25, 28 June 2022 (UTC)