Well, that took longer than I thought.

The good news is that the reason it took so long is (largely) that I ended up making two sections out of it, in addition to splitting off the stat stages: Battling Basics, and the new Battle Mechanics. Basically this is to make the distinction between introducing the reader to the concepts - which few people who've been playing the games and absorbing information off the Internet for a while should need - and covering the detailed mechanics, in a way that wouldn't make them get in each other's way.

The battle mechanics section itself is a bit different in concept this time around. Instead of explaining the exact damage formula from one generation, I took what all the games have in common, explained the commonalities and how they differ, and left out the most trivial details like the order in which everything is multiplied together. Personally I don't really care about those trivial details (and Game Freak don't seem to care about them either, since they keep changing them around) and think the section is more interesting by focusing on the common ground without trying to go into every last minutia, but if that doesn't suit your purposes, I also included links to the more detailed coverage on UPC and Smogon.

I have also, at the urging of visitors who pointed out the current Almighty Random Poll had been there for over a year, finally changed the poll. And to go with it, there's also a new Site Poll. To elaborate, there are several things I want to make right now, and while I'm just vaguely thinking I want to do them I don't know if I'm ever going to actually get them done. To explain the options on the new site poll:

Interactive Type Chart

This would essentially replace the Ultimate Type Tool in its current form, or so I'd hope. Basically, the type tool has always been kind of clunky to use, and the other day I suddenly started getting ideas about how I could make an interactive type chart that could answer the same questions the type tool does and more. Note that this doesn't mean just "a fancy-looking type chart"; it would be like a type chart also serving as a more visual version of the type tool. I've pretty much decided I'm going to do this, because I just think it would be fun, but if nobody's enthusiastic about it I could try to do something else first.

Weather/Field Effects

Basically, while I have separate sections on stat stages and status ailments, covering many of the non-damage things that moves can do, I still don't have any real coverage of weather effects (or other field effects such as Gravity), and as I was writing the battle mechanics section it started to feel like a pretty significant omission. The idea would be to make something like the stat stages and status ailments sections, with comprehensive coverage of what moves/abilities/etc. relate to these effects and explanations of the mechanics of what they generally do.

Safari Zone Mechanics

I've been wanting to make this for ages, since it's a classic example of the kind of section I've really wanted to find and been unable to, and talking about it since the second-generation capture mechanics, but I still haven't gotten around to it because I keep getting distracted by something else. This would cover the mechanics of Safari Zones in every generation.

Movie Reviews

I'm a couple of movies behind now, having watched the thirteenth movie twice but never gotten around to writing the actual review. It's pretty silly having reviews up to the twelfth movie and then just leaving off there, so I should probably try to get this done, but I don't know how much anyone else cares about my rambly movie reviews.

Pokémon Conquest Review

Thanks to Negrek for reminding me I was going to do this, too. I haven't actually done more than a couple of the postgame missions so far, so I'd want to do a bit more, but I already have several things I'd like to say about it.

Better Quiz Scripts

The other day somebody e-mailed me asking for help with one of my quiz scripts, and as always when I look at something I wrote years ago, I cringed and immediately felt that I must rewrite the whole thing. This would not be quite as pointless as most of my rewritings, because I'm less of a terrible programmer now and could therefore make it way more flexible and convenient - scripts where you only have to edit constants at the beginning, say, instead of following lengthy instructions.

Something Else

Of course, if you think all of that sounds terrible, or if I've forgotten something I promised to make ages ago that you'd rather see me do, feel free to vote this and comment in the guestbook.

You Suck

Because it wouldn't be a Cave of Dragonflies poll without this option.

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