So that said, yes, I would try out a 6v6 official tournaments. Your less subtle implication here is that they can take way too long to be feasible for a good tournament. I ask you, what's worse—having pokemon battles that may take 30-40 minutes longer than 2v2 ones to complete, or driving 1300 miles for little more than the hacked intangible pixels I referred to earlier? And do you honestly think that the same people who are willing to drive those 1300 miles for a pokemon tournament are the same people who would even remotely care about a battle taking 30 minutes longer than a doubles one would?
You're right, I personally don't care if it's 1v1 or 2v2 since as you've probably noticed by now, I just care that it's an official tournament being run by TPCI. Pretty much anyone else in attendance wouldn't care either. Most people would be willing to stand up all day, stare at a small screen, and go without food for the title. Who does care, however, are the facility owners and families of the younger participants that you love to reference. It's not feasible to have 128 man tournaments which will require 7 rounds of battling, last up to an hour each (max length of a Shoddy battle = 30 min + 15 min for super careful moveselection + 15 min for animation). When you include registration, you're looking at a nearly 16 hour tournament for juniors and seniors, without breaks. Throw in a 15 minute break between rounds and add 30 minutes to two of those breaks for meals and you're looking at 10.5 hours for juniors and 10.5 hours for seniors. If they can't run them both at the same time, there is no way they can run a 1v1 tournament. Plus with 1v1, you're still not guaranteed the fact that the best player will come out on top, totally killing the possibility of hosting it as best 2 out of 3.
Further, do you think that these people actually prefer doubles to singles? Do you think that Nintendo is actually reaching out to more people and drawing more people in with doubles tourneys than they would if they promoted singles tournaments? There is almost no evidence to support that doubles would actually get them more participants than singles.
I never said that I preferred doubles. All I've stated (time and time again) is that I believe that any site that asserts that it's the leader for competitive Pokemon should make its standard metagame that of the official tournament. Otherwise, no one cares that you're the leaders of a metagame that only you play. I believe that when it comes down to it, they're going to get exactly the same number of people with 1v1 or 2v2. I even heard from a few of our representatives in St. Louis this weekend that now that they've finally been able to give 2v2 a chance, they actually enjoy it more. The format allows for more creativity and utilization of moves and strategies that are only dug up by someone who truly knows the inner workings of the game.
Words about how since the anime doesn't feature double battles, neither should the VGC.
This argument really cracks me up. A leader in the community that scoffs at the Pokemon anime, manga, and TCG is going to use the anime as his support for what metagame should be played. Okay, since the anime doesn't feature 2v2, neither should Smogon. Jumpman, if that's going to be your support for your stance, would you mind rewriting the Pikachu analysis for me to include an "Aim for the horn" moveset and work Electric attacks into Rhydon/Rhyperior's counter section for me?
In conclusion, if Nintendo's actually been trying to make doubles more popular so that their tournaments that they seem to insist on being doubles are better attended, they're not doing a good job of it. I don't think they're trying, but this of course begs the real question of "why is everything doubles".
To get back on track, if the speed of 1v1 battles were an issue, I would actually use a Doduo or Dodrio mode to speed up the Regional, National and World battles. It's not as if this "technology" hasn't existed for a decade or anything, or that it couldn't be easily utilized on the Regional, National and World level if speed is actually a concern.
And I personally don't think that a 1v1 Stadium Mode is more "Rock Paper Scissors" than 2v2 is. What's more important is that I definitely don't think that this is the reason Nintendo hasn't tried it. I've actually posted on these forums a couple times that best-of-three or -five Stadium Mode battles would go a long way to combating the valid concern of one 3v3 battle deciding an entire match, and this would still allow matches to be completed in a very quick fashion.
Like I said above, I don't think that TPCI is using doubles as their standard because it's what they think is the best and most popular but because it's what's the most feasible. As I illustrated, 6 Pokemon 1v1 isn't an option and they probably figure that Stadium mode lacks the thrill and excitement that 2v2 can produce.
A sped up battling mode could be an option. When I spoke to Mike Liesik (the coordinator of the VGC), he expressed how unhappy he is with the format, saying "You guys deserve so much better." He said that he's working with Game Freak for the newer games, not just HGSS but for Gen 5. He's trying to get them to work features into the games that will make running the tournaments alot easier.
And, money may be tight for them but it's much tighter for their target audience. Do you think Omega and ipl would have been as keen on trekking 3100 miles last year when gas prices were $4.00 per gallon? Or that the effects of the bad economy didn't still keep families (which I again intentionally use instead of players) from making a three-hour trip for a tourney that son or daughter may not even have a chance to play in?
Given that they took a truck this year, I'm sure that they'd be more than willing to do it all over again with $4.00 per gallon gas, searching just a little bit harder to find a car to borrow instead. ;)
If you were running the tournaments and were tempted to drop them, you'd probably be fired for even suggesting it. You're giving Smogon way too much credit here for the "ungrateful everyone"—I highly doubt the Sponsors and Nintendo think everyone is ungrateful for their efforts. And what would they care? "We" are going to buy the next game anyway, aren't we? What's it to them if they're able to reach out to just enough new people to offset the cost of them holding these tournaments?
I'm not giving Smogon any credit here. I'm giving credit to the moms at Nashville who were so upset that they said they wouldn't be buying Pokemon games for their kids ever again. The moms who chewed out the tournament directors when they aren't going to be handed money for a 40 stop tour until they can prove that it will be wildly successful. People need to make it clear to TPCI they're interested but just want to see a few changes. That lets them know that the players are still willing to go out and buy the new game, just to play in the tournament. Otherwise, they might see any efforts at organizing a tournament as futile and unwanted, choosing not to put in the effort of organizing one.
And maybe we care a lot more about actually making competitive pokemon better and being the #1 site for competitive pokemon than "yielding more publicity" or trying to make money.
In my opinion, Smogon's brand of competitive Pokemon is worthless when it yields little more than a small cup below your name. If you're going to call yourself #1, you'd better support the true #1 metagame, the one that people show up in droves to play.
Tell me why this latest step in the wrong direction of how Nintendo holds their Official Tournaments should be anything but discouraging to me and the rest of the people here at Smogon who have a say in what we "study".
It is discouraging, that was stated. Their stance on hacking needs to be made clear and hopefully the tournament will improve with time. I realize that things could've been better. I maintain only two things:
1. This is the only tournament that matters.
2. People should try to understand why the tournament was organized the way it was and then make feasible suggestions.
Firstly, I don't see how Jump's "rant" was hypocritical in the slightest. You failed to demonstrate how any part of Jump's involvement makes his claims against the VGC somehow invalid. Something being a "WIP" doesn't shield it from criticism, that's absurd.
Did you bother to read my argument at all? I never stated that the VGC wasn't flawed. My entire post was that while the VGC does have its problems, there are reasons that the tournament was carried out the way it was. I'm sick of hearing people whine over the setup without taking the time to think about why TPCI made the moves that they did. All of these criticisms need to be sent where they belong, to TPCI so that they can do something about it for next year.
I have to wonder though, what are you even doing on this websites? You freely admit you disagree with Smogon's philosophy; you think its practices are hypocritical; you think we are concerned about metagame that nobody cares about; and you somehow think its some conspiracy waged by chaos against naive people like myself who contribute to the site for "badge" (yeah, that's obviously why I did it). So, why do you even continue to come here if you disagree with Smogon at the most fundamental of levels?
Try checking my recent posts...
I didn't post in the month of May at all.
All but 1 of my few posts in the last 3 months have been in this thread.
For every 10 people who don't understand that winning a Smogon tournament will get you nothing, there is at least one who wants to win an official title from TPCI. I'm still here to remain in touch with those few people.
Also the badges are notches in ones belt, and are not the reason that people do these things. People contribute to smogon for the same reason they would compete in a national tournament for no tangible benefit other than "bragging rights." No offense to the website owners, but I doubt this website pulls in a penny of net profit, but I could be incorrect.
What do you have to show for contributing to Smogon? Who can you brag about it to?
Do you know how many people approached Paul (Zerowing) last weekend and knew who he was? One lady even bought him dinner. I'm sorry but there's just no comparing the benefits that come with contributing to Smogon to that of winning a real Pokemon championship.
Also, you'd be surprised on how much money chaos makes. A website worth generator (
http://www.cubestat.com/www.smogon.com) has determined that the site is worth almost $83,000. Another that I tried came back with $64,000 and a third one returned $34,000. That first site also estimated that chaos makes $113 per day off of his GoogleAds based on how much traffic the site gets.
I do not see how criticizing a structure that will inherently be strewn with flaws should tick you off. There are always improvements that can be made to virtually any product or experience, so why would people not seek them out or be angry that they did not exist?
I addressed this point above with Caelum. I'm not trying to shield the tournaments. I'm asking for people to think about why TPCI did what they did before the start spewing on and on about it. In my post, I encouraged people to send in their criticisms and convey how upset they were in an e-mail to TPCI.
To your point about them running the tournament, and what is actually important in my post, of course it is not their duty, but if fans organized tournaments and ran them, then they would lack any sense of being "official" and "legitimate," which would leave people feeling that it is not really worth their time. This is exactly why criticism is so valid - these tournaments are "official," and people want to feel that their battling prowess has been displayed and that they earned whatever prize they win.
This is why I feel that it's useless to continue to play standard 1v1 when nothing will come out of it other than perhaps personal enjoyment for having played mind-numbing Shoddy battles for hours on end. Take the time, prepare for the Official tournament, end up with something to show for it.
The losers also do not want to feel that they have been cheated by a stupid format and rules, even if they knowingly complied with it. They want a chance to win by playing competitively, not by playing an arbitrary format. The way you play the game is essentially always six pokemon 1 versus 1, which makes demanding anything else arbitrary for now.
I agree with the fact that people shouldn't be cheated out of getting to play but 2v2 being arbitrary is far from the truth. It has been the standard format for four straight years of tournaments, it seems like people would begin to catch on. Just because 6 Pokemon 1v1 is what started it all and the metagame that this community opts to support doesn't make all other metagames arbitrary. Doubles is as competitive as you choose to make it.
