There are plenty of great features in store for the Marriland website over the course of 2019, but just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, the rebuild of the Marriland site will take some time.
So you can get an idea of what plans are in store for the site and what the priority will be for its various features, I have decided to share the Marriland Development Roadmap for you. Development of the Marriland website will take place across four phases, which I will outline for you below.
Phase 1 – COMPLETE
This is the first phase of the Marriland website and will start off rather modest, but lay the foundation for the future. As you may have noticed if you’re rather web savvy, I’ve opted to run the Marriland website on WordPress. I feel that this will ultimately provide the ability to expand and scale better than a custom solution or my previous thought of having the site powered by Mediawiki.
However, I am still relatively new to WordPress, and while I feel that there’s a lot of potential there to integrate the tools and resources that I have in mind, it will take some time to learn the platform. So that’s why the first phase is a matter of setting the site up in the first place.
My current estimate for Phase 1’s completion is end of March.
UPDATE: Phase 1 has been marked as “complete” on March 29, 2019.
News Updates – COMPLETE
UPDATE: News has been rolling out for awhile now. You can find all of the Pokémon News in its own category, or group it by sub-categories using the site’s navigation.
I haven’t really had a place to effectively share Pokémon news updates in awhile. Now, though, I have an outlet for it and I’m looking forward to sharing various Pokémon news updates pertaining to a variety of topics in the Pokémon fandom, such as coverage on Pokémon Sword & Shield, updates about the Pokémon Trading Card Game, and updates about Pokémon GO.
I’m not aiming to provide as extensive and immediate coverage as well-established sites like Serebii.net, but I am looking forward to sharing my spin on things and aim to provide credible news updates instead of speculation (unless it’s clearly marked as speculation).
Additionally, I may provide updates about the Marriland website and any status updates on projects, such as completion of tools or progress updates on other resources like the walkthroughs. I may also share interesting products or games I’m looking at, which may show up on the front page, but you can also just directly view the Pokémon News category to filter only news about Pokémon if that’s all you’re interested in.
Team Builder – COMPLETE
UPDATE: The Team Builder is now up and running. More improvements will be made to it over time, but it is perfectly functional.
YES! I know a LOT of you miss the old Team Builder tool that was used to aid the construction of Pokémon teams. If you’re not familiar with what it was, it was a tool that allowed you to input a team of up to six Pokémon and then it would show their collective weaknesses and resistances, allowing you to spot any glaring holes in your team’s defenses and make the appropriate changes.
Although this is not available at launch, this is a feature that I will be working on in early-March and hope to launch a basic, functional version by mid-March. It will include MOBILE-FRIENDLY capabilities, too!
The Team Builder will be upgraded even further in the future, too, to add additional capabilities such as suggestions and better filtering.
Mobile Friendly Design – COMPLETE
This is something that should be mostly functional at launch, but I’m sure there may be a few rough bits here and there. I want it to be very clear that my goal for the site is to have the entirety of the site 100% mobile friendly! It should be a pleasant experience regardless of which device you’re browsing it on, as long as it’s not 5+ years old or so.
Pokémon Sword & Shield Coverage – COMPLETE
UPDATE: There’s now a dedication section for Pokémon Sword & Shield coverage. It will be expanded in the future as more information is released and will likely have different sub-pages associated with it.
I actually wasn’t quite expecting Pokémon Sword & Shield to be announced so soon, but hey, bring it on! I’d like to compile some pages on what’s known about Pokémon Sword and Shield so you can have a reference to look through as more and more news about the games is released.
I’ll try my best to keep it current with whatever information is revealed or otherwise known (no rumors!).
A Few Guides – MOSTLY COMPLETE
UPDATE: While more guides will be added over time, there’s a very comprehensive EV Training guide available and also a decent start to a Shiny Hunting guide, which is “mostly complete” in the sense that it explains the basics and a few methods — more methods will be added later on, but since each one of those is essentially a guide itself, I’d say enough progress has been made to mark this as complete, or at least “mostly complete”.
On top of that, I would like to have a few guides for various topics about Pokémon written before completing Phase 1. I won’t be able to have guides for everything, but I’d like at least one or two helpful topics covered, and look forward to expanding this throughout the coming months in the future!
Phase 2
Phase 1 will not be overly dynamic, as you can see, and will focus more on the “blog” style of content instead of tools and resources. That’s just so there’s something to tide you over until the bigger projects are finished, and that’s when Phase 2 starts to shine, because it will bring back the bread and butter of the Marriland website: the Pokédex and Walkthroughs!
My current estimate for Phase 2’s completion is end of July end of October.
UPDATE Jul. 31, 2019: Due to travel plans and other commitments, as well as a lot of work involved on the backend of the site that was necessary for Phase 2’s projects, the completion of Phase 2 is not possible by the original estimate of the end of July. It should be possible by the end of October, if not sooner, and will cement the site’s position to cover Sword & Shield most effectively.
Pokédex
There are plenty of Pokédex sites out there, but I’m looking forward to bringing the Marriland Pokédex back and having it mobile-friendly, concise and easy to navigate, and show the most helpful information rather than drowning you in the stuff that doesn’t matter as much.
The design of the Pokédex pages as well as the listing and search pages is very important to me, so a lot of care and consideration will be given to making it an awesome experience and I hope that you will choose it as your Pokédex of choice!
Walkthroughs – IN PROGRESS
Writing even a single walkthrough is an absolutely enormous undertaking, so I will most likely write walkthroughs in reverse order, so covering the newest games such as Pokémon Let’s Go! Pikachu & Eevee and Pokémon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon before heading back to the classics.
My eventual plan is to have written walkthroughs on every Pokémon game, complete with video walkthroughs accompanying them, but this will take years. Gotta start somewhere, though! That’s why Phase 2 will focus on getting everything I need to write walkthroughs going and will give you one or two walkthroughs by the end of Phase 2.
Of course, I will be prioritizing a walkthrough for Pokémon Sword & Shield when they release later this year, don’t worry!
UPDATE Jul. 31, 2019: Progress on the Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee walkthrough has begun, but a lot of development in the core backend of the site was required for this endeavor, which resulted in it being delayed longer than I had anticipated.
More Tools
The Team Builder is just the first step — I plan on having a TON of other helpful tools for the Marriland website that you can use while playing your favorite Pokémon games!
Here’s a list of a few that I have planned:
- IV Calculator for determining your Pokémon’s IVs (individual values).
- Stat Calculator for figuring out what stats Pokémon will have at any given level.
- Damage Calculator for determining how much damage your Pokémon will do against any other Pokémon, geared towards both competitive and non-competitive players alike.
- EXP Calculator to figure out how much EXP a Pokémon will give you and your party when you knock it out.
- EV Trainer to help make EV (Effort Value) Training easier in the game you specify.
I might not get all of these done by the end of Phase 2, but most of these are pretty simple and I think would be very useful for the site, so I should be able to get at least most of them up!
Video Section
I have a lot of different streams, videos, and playlists all across the internet — for instance, you can find me on YouTube, Twitch, and even Facebook. But having a single area where you can see my various series, hear about them, and get linked to where you need to go is something I think you could benefit from, especially if you’re looking for new content to watch!
That’s why I’ll be launching a video portal to make finding my content easier.
Phase 3
Later on in the year, prior to the release of Sword & Shield, Phase 3 will begin. This is effectively the “social” phase, because that’s when a lot of key functionality will be available. It’s also going to be an incredible undertaking to get it all operational!
My current estimate for Phase 3’s completion is end of October early 2020.
UPDATE Jul. 31, 2019: Due to Phase 2 taking longer to complete than originally anticipated, Phase 3 will be delayed and is now estimated to be finished in early 2020.
User Registration
Prior to Phase 3, registration on the Marriland website directly will not be an option — you can still register on the Marriland Forums and discuss the updates there, but this is something intentionally left off of the main site until I have a solid grasp of how I can implement it properly.
Once user registration is enabled, saving and storing information from the site’s Pokémon tools will be easier than ever — imagine being able to save multiple teams or Pokémon to your account that you can use in any of the tools. I want it to be super flexible and synergize well with the resources on the site, but I also want to do it right, which is why I’m holding off on it initially until the site is more established.
Checklists
This is a very ambitious feature that will require user registration, as it’s a part of its very core. That’s right — I’m looking to feature checklists for various parts of the Pokémon fandom!
What kinds of checklists am I looking to create for you to use? Here’s a few that I have in mind:
- A Pokémon TCG checklist for keeping track of your entire TCG collection. You will be able to privately share your collection with friends, filter it by which cards you have or are missing (among other filters), and also publicly list it if you would like.
- A Pokédex Completion checklist for keeping track of your progress of completing a Pokédex in any given game, as well as showing you the best way to obtain any given Pokémon outside of trades.
- A Shiny Pokémon checklist for keeping track of all of your Shiny Pokémon you’ve collected on the specified game (or across all games). It will also show the recommended method to obtain each Shiny Pokémon as well as its relative difficulty to obtain.
- A Pokémon GO checklist for keeping track of your Pokémon collection on Pokémon GO. This will be updated when new Pokémon are introduced as well as when new Shiny Pokémon are added.
This will absolutely be one of the largest projects I have ever worked on and will require an incredible amount of testing and planning, but I believe it will provide an invaluable resource for the Marriland website and the Pokémon community as a whole, so I look forward to working on this!
Phase 4
Ah, Phase 4 — the final phase, as of right now. By this point, the site should be firmly established and an excellent resource to Pokémon fans across the globe, and that’s why I want to truly make it a worldwide experience.
My current estimate for Phase 4’s completion is mid 2020.
Internationalization
Pokémon truly is a worldwide experience and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting people, either in person or online, from all over the world, from every single habitable continent.
English and Japanese are probably the two most dominant languages in the Pokémon community, but I want to expand the Marriland website’s tools, Pokédexes, checklists, and more into many other languages so more people around the world can benefit! Even languages that aren’t natively featured in the Pokémon games themselves, such as Dutch, Portuguese, and many others.
Think about it: Pokémon, move, item, and ability names are often completely different in different languages. Sometimes the names don’t directly translate, so someone playing a game in their native language might not know what “Quick Attack” is in English, because it might have been translated differently or to make more sense in the local language. That can make it hard for people playing Pokémon in other languages as they will often need to memorize the English names for Pokémon, moves, etc.
My goal is to have all of the tools and Pokédex portions of the site available in many different languages. It’s something I’ll need some help for, but I look forward to working together with the international community to provide a site that can benefit everyone!
Conclusion
That about covers my Marriland Development Roadmap! I feel it’s very important to have shared this with you so you understand my plans for the future going forward and also have an idea of when different features will be implemented.
It’s a big undertaking, but I’m looking forward to doing more than just restoring my website to its former glory — I want it to be one of the best resources out there for Pokémon fans across the globe. So I hope you are as excited for the future as I am and will check back regularly to see all of the new updates!