Pokemon History Question PLEASE HELP

[SawyerBali]

I am in an argument with one of my friends. Does the index number of a Pokemon refer to the number of which they were created? If you could please answer me with a link or something that can help finish this arguement that would be awesome! I used Bublbapedia make my argument but he does now believe me! Thank you!

 

[LinooneFriend]

I've been reading a lot of Pokehistory lately, so let me help you.
A Pokemon's national or regional dex number does not have to do with when it was created. This was, however, the way they had originally planned it to be, which would have made Rhydon #001 and put Victreebel at the end of the pokedex. If you want to show your friend something, I learned this from a YouTube video from user "dykgaming" entitled "Pokemon- Did You Know Gaming". I'm not entirely sure, but from my own experience I can guess that the pokedex is arranged in the order you encounter them.
Also, for more proof, you can search "Capsule Monsters" on Bulbapedia and you'll see that Rhydon is one of the Pokemon in the concept sketches (along with Gengar and Nidorino). These Pokemon would be first in the pokedex if it was arranged that way.

I hope this helps!

 

[Brendino]

The index number may not neccessarily be the order in which Pokemon were created (although the Capsule Monsters point with Rhydon is very true), but the order in which they were programmed into the game. However, Pokemon that at least had basic concepts of them created prior to the creation of Pokemon (such as the examples above, as well as Lapras and Mew) are found fairly early in the index numbers, meaning that they were probably created early on. Near the end of the list you start seeing full evolutionary families like the Oddish, Bellsprout and Ponyta lines, which means that they were probably created later on in the process to fill out the Pokedex.