One MMO player's fun Pokemon Snap-style challenge has turned into more than four years of hunting down RuneScape and Old School RuneScape players who hold coveted, one-of-a-kind Pokemon usernames, all so they can say hello and log them in one of the most unique Pokedexes ever made.
Zarmos shared their ongoing Pokedex with the OSRS Reddit community earlier this week, collecting over 500 Pokemon usernames in one impressive gallery which begins with the one and only adventurer, "Pokemon." The first 'mon on the list, which is actually arranged by Pokedex order, is Ivysaur, who comes in at number 2 in the Pokemon games. Another player named after Terapagos, Pokemon number 1,024, is the current peak of the list, with 508 more in between for a total of 511 sightings.
This is about more than confirming these players exist, too. That would be boring. Instead, Zarmos will physically go say hello in-game for the Pokedex photo. Pokemon players have been found in both RuneScape and its Old School sibling, but Zarmos is the common denominator in the photos.
In an interview with GamesRadar+, Zarmos explains that this Pokedex project was inspired by a few players named Dunsparce, Wartortle, Jolteon, and Mudkip who appeared in a Twisted League tournament that developer Jagex hosted in December 2019. Twisted League is a temporary OSRS game mode that warps the MMO with game-changing effects and XP bonuses, traditionally set up like a tournament where players can compete for points.
"Rare usernames in RuneScape are really cool to me because it's a 23-year-old database, and unlike other MMOs, there's only one of each name for the rest of time," they say. "I thought it would be a fun challenge to see how many owners of these names I can meet in-game for a picture. It's kind of like playing Pokemon Snap. I added every Pokemon name across two of my accounts and played the game normally. If they went online I'll say hi."
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Most of these sightings have been "completely random" and often fueled by tracking names in friends lists. Zarmos has naturally stumbled upon a few while playing, and other players, including some 200 folks in their Discord, have even shared their own Pokemon username sightings.
"Naturally, the first 1-200 are relatively easy as they are active players with their private chat on," they continue. "I can just [message] them. As time went on though, they got increasingly rarer. I will often catch people logging on RuneScape for the first time in one, four, and even 10 years. I have also become connected to the name market which still remains a source of new names. Nowadays there will be a new one once every three or four weeks at best."
The name market surrounding RuneScape and OSRS is one of the most fascinating variables here. As Zarmos says, these Pokemon names are totally unique, which inherently makes them rare. Where there's scarcity, there's often value, and since developer Jagex isn't really bothered by the name market as long as it stays in-game with no real money exchanged, these Pokemon names can go for a pretty penny: "Most Gen-1 names are 6-10 billion. And anything like Charizard, Pikachu, etc. you can double or triple it." And if you're wondering, yeah, 10 billion gold is a lot of money, especially in OSRS.
The white whale for Zarmos is one day meeting a player named after their personal favorite Pokemon, Chimecho. I was pleased to find that they've already found my favorite Pokemon, Lapras, number 131. But their most memorable encounter so far has been – and please hold back your memes – Vaporeon.
"My friend Neil is a very OG player, and he used to know a lot of these people," Zarmos says. "Out of the blue he remembered that an admin of Pokémon Planet, a ROMhack [now called PokeNexus], owned [the username] Vaporeon. He was very difficult to reach though, I couldn't message him on any platform."
Determined, Zarmos turned to Pokemon Planet itself, only to discover that you can't message anybody unless you have a registered Pokemon of at least level 30. "So I played this romhack against my will for like 2 hours and it worked," they say. And it worked! Vaporeon is in the log, joined by Jolteon and Flareon. May Zarmos one day complete the RuneScape Pokedex in its entirety.
