Hey there, and welcome to cult *cough* PokeMMO! If you played the games before, this feels quite different from them. Completely different league. Once you finish the elite 4, you will be seeing all sorts of people with competition standard pokemon, with all these fancy ass IV and EV stuff. As for your starters, choose whatever you want! Most people go for charmander because charizards look pretty awesome. Well. That's why I went for it. You never really end up sticking with your starter, after E4 etc.