darkSpyro

I was thinking about something.

Multiple interviews confirmed ALL the previous Portals will work with this game.
So, 3 in total (unless you also count the wireless Giants' one) and then the SuperCharged one.

But do you also think you'll be able to use all the characters with all the Portals...?
I mean, I know traps will only work with this year's one and the Traptanium Portal but what about Swappers?

I thought they had to create a new Portal when SWAP Force came out because the older ones couldn't read all the 4 chips inside swappable Skylanders at once.

I hope they didn't sell us a new Portal just for the sake of it two years ago and they will find a way to justify this choice.
Unless you can either only put one Swapper on the Portal or Swappers will only work using the SWAP Force Portal or the newer ones, they'll have to be prepared to give some serious explanations.

I would suspect that the swappers do not work at all with SA and Giants portals. I was thinking perhaps it works, when the figure isn't swapped, but no, it will still need to read the top and bottom portions since they have separate skill sets.

Perhaps this theory could be tested by using an SA/Giant portal on TT and see if the swappers work, but they could have put code in the game to prevent that from working even if it was technically possible.

Quote: melvimbe

I would suspect that the swappers do not work at all with SA and Giants portals. I was thinking perhaps it works, when the figure isn't swapped, but no, it will still need to read the top and bottom portions since they have separate skill sets.

Perhaps this theory could be tested by using an SA/Giant portal on TT and see if the swappers work, but they could have put code in the game to prevent that from working even if it was technically possible.

Exactly, I was thinking the same regarding Swappers; even if they aren't swapped the Portal would still have to read 2 or even 4 chips at once.

I think it's their choice whether or not allow older Portals to be recognized by newer games at this point.
If you plug in the SWAP Force Portal to play Trap Team the game will simply not recognize it and will ask you to plug the Traptanium one, so you can't make that experiment.
I don't think it's a matter of code to prevent toys from working but to prevent older Portals to be recognized.

All the Portals recognize all the Skylanders but only the right game will recognize the newest ones.

SSA and Giants portals only read up to 4 anything, two Skylander chips max according to interviews, so you probably can't use two Swappers at once.

I still like the Traptanium Portal, but it would be awesome to use the newest SuperCharger Portal.

I don't think so that much. As I said before, not only it's cheap-looking like a simple Hot Wheels set, but it also has very small railings and everything's going to fall off if you bump it even in a flat table.It's not even elevated enough so you don't drag the entire thing down on accident.

I think they lied to us about the Swap Force portal. I can use swappers with my Battle Grounds portal so I think they lied.

Quote: ninja9351

I think they lied to us about the Swap Force portal. I can use swappers with my Battle Grounds portal so I think they lied.

But does the Bluetooth portal register Adventure Packs? The manual for SSA says the limit is two skylanders,a magic item, and an AP at once. Now if they register more Skylanders if made to do so is definately hard to tell since they force the portals to not work on other games.

Quote: Bifrost

I don't think so that much. As I said before, not only it's cheap-looking like a simple Hot Wheels set, but it also has very small railings and everything's going to fall off if you bump it even in a flat table.It's not even elevated enough so you don't drag the entire thing down on accident.

My thoughts exactly. It looks like they're just giving up on the portal master concept with this portal...which actually ties in with the story, I guess. But I agree---cheapest looking portal ever.

And it's a shame because the flames on the back and the floor full of Skylands runes are pretty awesome. If it looked like the older ones, with a tower-like structure, it'd look much better and still would've been big enough to fit vehicles and stuff.

Quote: Bifrost

it also has very small railings and everything's going to fall off if you bump it even in a flat table.

I've heard that the portal has a bit of a rubberized texture to it (EDIT: Source), so the figures with bases will probably be fine.

If so, they still underestimate how clumsy people can be. I took some time to notice that the portal should not stay too close because I'll eventually trip over the wires when walking around.Though some of the bigger ones fall, the railings of the Traptanium Portal hold the others very well.

Giants portal works fine with swappers I used it all the time with battlegrounds on the TV and I used it with 2 swappers.

Quote: Bifrost

I don't think so that much. As I said before, not only it's cheap-looking like a simple Hot Wheels set, but it also has very small railings and everything's going to fall off if you bump it even in a flat table.It's not even elevated enough so you don't drag the entire thing down on accident.

I agree but there is still a chance it will look at least a bit better than what it does now, when the game will be released.

It will probably still look like something out of Hot Wheels but may have some more smaller touches to make it seem less cheap.

So, from what I understood V.V. plain lied to us when they said a new Portal was needed for SWAP Force.
THEY wanted to make a new one.
After all, when you do the math the Portal is almost free but still they could have said the truth and I would have still accepted it.

From a technical stand point, having a new portal in Swap Force MADE sense.
The portal from Giants and SSA could only read a certain amount (as someone mentioned above) which was a level or item piece, and 2 Skylanders. = 3.
The Swap-Force portal is able to read 5 pieces at a time (Top and bottom of 2 landers = 4) + 1. It, infact, was probably made to actually read MORE than that.
They could of put the Traptainum slot on the Swap Force portal (as 2 teams are working on the game, one does one while the other does.. the other they probably already had the concept by that point) however it would've confused consumers asking "Why is there a hole and a speaker but nothing for it?". I think here, is where they should've changed it up. They should've allowed the Swap Force portal to be able to adapt "Small portal" addons through a type of usb slot on the side of the device (and had for room for around 3 or so) then created the traptanium thing as an add-on to the side of the portal. But they didn't, and thus the Traptanium portal was born.

Trap-team characters CAN be read on the Swap-force portal, however the game tells you no, simply because "You cannot use traps" (though, it just tells you it is unsupported on the screen). This is where they could be classed as "Lying", but it is only because their new game wouldn't work correctly with the Swap Force or previous portals.

I am hoping when they get to portal 6, they allow addons, or allow a type of SD card to be stuck into the bottom or side of the portal which allows customers to update their portal software (make it simple, go back to the old nicer design of portals like the 1st and 3rd one and then go and then in the new starter packs have a little chip in which Parents or users can pop into the bottom of the old portal. That's my idea of what they should do anyway (and also.. make the pack have the same amount of characters in the starter pack.. hated the portal owners pack of Giants as it didn't include any of the other characters...)

I also agree with the fact that the new portal looks cheap, really hate the blue edging... blegh. I do want the new portal though.. I just hope they have made it this time so I can unplug the wire from the back of it.

Kitah-san, if you read the above posts, the Battlegrounds portal which was released during Giants' time can read two swappers at once.

Also SSA "can" read 4(2 skylander,1 magic item,1 AP).

Quote: Bifrost

Kitah-san, if you read the above posts, the Battlegrounds portal which was released during Giants' time can read two swappers at once.

Also SSA "can" read 4(2 skylander,1 magic item,1 AP).

I had read that above, but from my understanding the Giants wireless bluetooth portal works differently. I never knew that about the SSA item. I always thought it could only hold 3 pieces on the portal at a time, rather than 4.

The portal does come "free" with the pack, mind you. If you work out all of the other costs.

There's a certain amount of marketing deception going on here from Acti/VV because while it's true any portal should work with Superchargers (as they're simple RFID toys), it gets complicated by the technical limitations of old portals with Swap Force characters. There's always a chance a parent who's child only owns the first two games, picks up the digital version of Superchargers, then at some point later buys a few Swap Force figures.

There are no technical limitations of the old portals. If there was how would they read 2 swappers a vehicle and a magic item?

Quote: mantez

There are no technical limitations of the old portals. If there was how would they read 2 swappers a vehicle and a magic item?

As far as I'm aware, SSA and Giants Portals are incapable of reading a Swap Force character...or it may be that it can't read two Swap Force characters at the same time.

Quote: wideawakewesley

Quote: mantez

There are no technical limitations of the old portals. If there was how would they read 2 swappers a vehicle and a magic item?

As far as I'm aware, SSA and Giants Portals are incapable of reading a Swap Force character...or it may be that it can't read two Swap Force characters at the same time.

They can.

Quote: mantez

Quote: wideawakewesley

Quote: mantez

There are no technical limitations of the old portals. If there was how would they read 2 swappers a vehicle and a magic item?

As far as I'm aware, SSA and Giants Portals are incapable of reading a Swap Force character...or it may be that it can't read two Swap Force characters at the same time.

They can.

Presumably this is wrong then?

http://support.activision.com/...l-Compatibility

Here 2 swappers on a 3DS portal at the same time.

Try two SWAPpers and a magic item?

I would but the magic items don't work in the LGTV version of battlegrounds

Somewhere along the line we were misled then, because I remember distinctly in Swap Force they REQUIRED the new portal. I'm guessing they just forced it with software but there wasn't really a requirement for it?

Quote: TakeYourLemons

Somewhere along the line we were misled then, because I remember distinctly in Swap Force they REQUIRED the new portal. I'm guessing they just forced it with software but there wasn't really a requirement for it?

That's exactly what I want to know.

At least this year they admitted the Portal isn't required but it's simply larger to better accomodate toys on it.

Looks like the only required Portal so far has been the Traptanium one (and even then it wasn't a technical requirement since they could have easily make traps work like Magic Items).

We still need verification that the console Giants portal supports swappers, although it's great that the 3DS giants portal does. It's still possible they're different or that they said it doesn't work because you can't put anything else on the portal at the same time (e.g. a magic item), which would break compatibility.

Nice to see the 3DS one though

Update: just dug about in the garage trying to see if we have a giants portal, we don't, we got the booster pack

The requirement for a new portal was directly because of the 4 "tag" limit on older portals.

As each swapper was 2, that left little room for items. Ie, in 2 player mode, no items could be used. Acti decided that wasn't good enough.

A single Swapper and 2 items or 2 swappers and no items can be read on the old portals. I do this all the time on my windows app.

The newer portals can deal with 8 items as far as I know but I never looked into it. The main reason I think they might allow older portals is that there is no multiplayer anymore so 2 figures plus items is less likely anyway. Add in to that the fact Swappers are "double redundant" being so old they don't imagine you wanting to put 2 swappers and an item on the new game with the old portal.

If you do you get a "too many items" error and deal with it.

I don't know how official this "works with all old portals" message is, but the pile I have of them would be nice to re-use with the digital code version of the game!

All correct and makes sense except for one thing: we currently don't entirely know how multiplayer will be handled in this game.

We know there is still regular multiplayer, but don't know about the online racing system and if Battle Modes is back yet.

In regards to the old portals...sure why not. They could have changed the language between portal and Skylander to keep it simpler when the portal reads the toy allowing the old portals to be used in the new game. I don't have a detailed explanation as to why this would work...IT'S FREAKIN MAGIC, LET IT GO!!!!...but they seem confidant it will work so we'll see. Personally it's ALWAYS been in our best interest to buy the starter in terms of value. I believe the Super Chargers are $12.99 and the vehicles are $14.99 (I might have that backwards) as indicated but Lou from Acti. So at two Super Chargers and a vehicle we have $40.97 in toys. Now unless the digital game is only $34.02 I don't see the point, and that's just to break even.

In regards to multiplayer, I would not expect pvp to come back. My first indicator was the fact that there's only one vehicle on at a time thus disallowing the new gimmick to be used in pvp (could you imaging the Mad Max style vehicular pvp that could have been...damn!!!!). Also with Trap Team since they ditched pvp the Skylanders themselves seem to not be balanced at all for a potential pvp battle mode. The power and ability scale is all over the place. They would need to code stats and abilities to be equalized to make it even close to being fair. To be fair V.V. kind of broke pvp balance with characters like Night Sift, Spy Rise, Bumble Blast and others that can resurrect themselves, remove themselves from combat while dealing damage or homing bees that don't need to be aimed to hurt your opponent. Now when pvp balance isn't an issue we can (potentially) get cooler and crazier Skylanders. I would love to see pvp back but it's not a deal breaker. I'm curious to see if Doom Challenge is back or if we have some vehicular survival mode now...We shall have to wait and see.