As far as people not knowing information goes, I think it should be there for other players to point out in small cases, like not being able to catch X in Y place or it taking Z days to get from one town to another. Larger misunderstandings or blatant ignorance is something that could be brought up with the mods on a case by case basis.
It also feels like you're expecting too much if you want everyone to be familiar with everything as soon as they apply. Before I apped, I was only loosely familiar with Pokemon and I still consult Bulbapedia and game reference pages constantly to be sure of things.
My other game, Somarium, has a very detailed world as well as three years of backstory. As of the last mod update, it has 266 characters. The only check it has? A question asking what your favorite rule is. People don't have to know more than that. And in a lot of cases there, and likely here, characters asking a question ICly can double as a player asking OOCly to be certain they're learning things right.
What I'm getting at is that asking people to know as much as possible before they go in is a lot. The game, HMDs, and private player contact can serve for education and telling people what they do wrong in an easier manner than expecting everyone to know a lot of information right off the bat. I've heard from people who don't know Pokemon at all that say it's intimidating to read everything on their own time as it is and quizzing new players would only make them even more nervous about applying in the first place.
I've modded before, though only smaller games, and one of my personal goals was always to make applications seem as unintimidating as possible because that sets the mood for how they interact with the game as a whole. Demanding something exact can leave people with the impression that the mods are very strict overall and that they need to know everything when, in my experience here, getting educated on details as you play is perfectly reasonable.
Part 1: Passwords
It also feels like you're expecting too much if you want everyone to be familiar with everything as soon as they apply. Before I apped, I was only loosely familiar with Pokemon and I still consult Bulbapedia and game reference pages constantly to be sure of things.
My other game, Somarium, has a very detailed world as well as three years of backstory. As of the last mod update, it has 266 characters. The only check it has? A question asking what your favorite rule is. People don't have to know more than that. And in a lot of cases there, and likely here, characters asking a question ICly can double as a player asking OOCly to be certain they're learning things right.
What I'm getting at is that asking people to know as much as possible before they go in is a lot. The game, HMDs, and private player contact can serve for education and telling people what they do wrong in an easier manner than expecting everyone to know a lot of information right off the bat. I've heard from people who don't know Pokemon at all that say it's intimidating to read everything on their own time as it is and quizzing new players would only make them even more nervous about applying in the first place.
I've modded before, though only smaller games, and one of my personal goals was always to make applications seem as unintimidating as possible because that sets the mood for how they interact with the game as a whole. Demanding something exact can leave people with the impression that the mods are very strict overall and that they need to know everything when, in my experience here, getting educated on details as you play is perfectly reasonable.